MotoGP Valencia Race: Francesco Bagnaia victorious for the fourth time
Francesco Bagnaia has won his fourth race of the 2021 MotoGP season as Ducati take first 1-2-3.
Francesco Bagnaia solidifies himself as Fabio Quartararo’s biggest competitor for 2022 taking his fourth victory at Valencia as Ducati lockout the podium for the first time in their history since joining the MotoGP championship. Many have said and continue to say that the Ducati is the perfect motorcycle and they are continuing to prove this with this superb result after locking out the front row during qualifying before storming to victory.
Jorge Martin’s addition to the squad on the GP21 machinery has drastically improved their season as the rookie proved to be supremely fast straight out of the box at Qatar following it up with victories, podiums and four pole positions by the end of the year and there’s no doubt that he is going to be one to watch in 2022.
The race began with Jorge Martin on pole position retaining his lead for the first part of the race as the riders behind him worked to improve their position in the pecking order with the Ducati’s battling it out with the Suzuki’s of Joan Mir and Alex Rins. Joan Mir was looking very eager to take home his first win of the season riding aggressively attempting some pretty rough moves to make his way up the order however he was unable to get through on Jorge Martin, the Ducati man too strong. The baton of working past the solid barrier of the Pramac Ducati was passed over to Francesco Bagnaia on lap four as the Suzuki’s sat in P3 and P4, Rins leading Mir.
Alex Rins felt incredibly confident throughout the race and was looking to make his way through on Francesco Bagnaia until he regrettably suffered a crash, this means that he has finished the season in a very disappointing P13 overall opening the question to Suzuki of why they should hire him for 2023 and beyond. This crash handed Joan Mir third place as Jack Miller followed closely behind.
Back at the front Francesco Bagnaia was making up some serious ground to Jorge Martin lap by lap riding so close he could sniff his exhaust fumes, he wasn’t aiming to make a move at this time but instead study his opponent and work out the weaknesses of Jorge Martin who was running on the same bike, Pecco knowing exactly where the Pramac machine is strong and how he can work to push his way past for the race win. That’s exactly what would eventually happen with 13 laps to go, the factory Ducati man blasted his way through on Jorge Martin not allowing the Spaniard a chance to try and retaliate, from here on out Bagnaia would work to open a gap to the Pramac man leading every lap until the chequered flag to take his fourth win of the season.
Further back with nine laps to go Jack Miller was coming, he could smell a podium and hunted down Joan Mir getting past the 2020 MotoGP champion with only nine laps to go and opening up his charge to Jorge Martin. Miller was cutting into Martin lap by lap and was desperate to take a factory Ducati 1-2 but it wasn’t to be, he finished only 0.4 seconds from Martin ahead of him after closing over a second to the youngster in the final laps of the race, despite this Miller came home in a very strong P3 behind Bagnaia and Martin to seal Ducati’s 1-2-3.
Joan Mir would come home in fourth place ahead of Fabio Quartararo in fifth place, the world champion struggling slightly in the final two rounds of the year but aiming to come back and attack the Ducati’s in 2022!
Full results –
Featured image – Ducati
