A year after the death of team founder Fausto Gresini, Enea Bastianini triumphs for his team in their first outing with Ducati and praises the setting
Enea Bastianini’s victory on last year’s Gresini Team Ducati came as a surprise at the 2022 MotoGP season opener in Qatar. The triumph was celebrated with corresponding emotion. After the death of team founder Fausto Gresini in February 2021 due to COVID-19, there had briefly been question marks behind the team’s future.
But instead of closing down, they stuck to plans to team up with Ducati for 2022. Previously, Gresini had been the operational team for Aprilia for years. Now that they are Ducati’s satellite team, the team is run by Fausto Gresini’s widow and two sons.
On Sunday, Bastianini rode straight to victory at the Losail International Circuit in Qatar with a composed ride coming from second on the grid. After the start he was initially “only” fifth, but kept his cool and worked his way forward step by step. One after the other he passed Joan Mir (Suzuki), Marc Marquez (Honda) and Brad Binder (KTM) and was second with six laps to go.
Bastianini causes emotional scenes
Then Bastianini also caught Honda rider Pol Espargaro, who had been leading until then, by passing him out of the slipstream on the start/finish straight. Trying to keep up, Espargaro went off the track in turn 1 and ended up third behind Binder.
The big winners, however, are Bastianini and the Gresini team. “It’s just incredibly emotional for the whole team,” said Bastianini, confessing, “After the race we were all crying. “
For Bastianini, who is riding his second MotoGP season, it is his first win in the premier class. The Gresini team had last triumphed in the premier class in October 2006, when Toni Elias won the Portuguese Grand Prix at Estoril by 0.002 seconds from Valentino Rossi.
“As far as my own potential is concerned, I learned a lot in the Moto2 class,” Bastianini thinks back especially to the 2018 season, when he became world champion with the Italtrans team. The Italian had started his World Championship career four years earlier in the Moto3 class, with Fausto Gresini’s team.
Although the team founder is unfortunately no longer among the living, a circle was closed on Sunday in Qatar. Bastianini celebrated the victory exuberantly on the podium with Gresini’s widow Nadia Padovani.
“The last lap was one of the longest of my life, comparable only to the one in Portimao when I won the Moto2 title,” Bastianini recalled, saying of the podium ceremony, “When I looked into Nadia’s eyes, I saw Fausto’s motivation to take this team to the front. “
“Fausto has hired really great people for his team,” praised Gresini’s latest MotoGP race winner and continued, “Now it’s Nadia who is in charge of the team and the atmosphere is fantastic. The team members are all as motivated as I am. That’s the only reason it was possible to pull this off today. “
2021s-Ducati “one of the best bikes at the moment “
With the Ducati GP21, Bastianini has a potent bike at his disposal with which he wants to cause even more surprises: “The 2021 bike really suits me. The potential of this bike was immediately clear to me when I rode it for the first time at the end of last year in Jerez [at the November test]. “
“Whether we will get new parts during the season, I don’t know. We are not a factory team. I only know that this bike is certainly one of the best at the moment and that I have one of the best teams behind me,” Bastianini said.
In contrast to long-term leader Pol Espargaro, who had fitted the soft rear tyre to his Honda, Bastianini rode the medium compound on the rear wheel of his Gresini Ducati on Sunday in Qatar. This gave him the trump card in the closing stages, as Espargaro was visibly struggling with diminishing grip.
“Tyres are really one of the keys in the MotoGP class these days,” noted the latest race winner at this level.
