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The first thought upon seeing Pecco Bagnaia’s pace in Friday MotoGP practice at the Circuit of the Americas was ‘oh, he’s absolutely got this’. The second thought though, in light of his crash in the last round at Termas de Rio Honda, was ‘he has to prove it’.
Prove it he did not. Having ridden masterfully in the sprint, with the expectation he could repeat the trick in the lead, Bagnaia came under pressure from Alex Rins early in the Sunday race. This wasn’t unexpected, but Rins sustaining it for more than the first three or four laps perhaps was.
CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? 😱@PeccoBagnaia makes ANOTHER MASSIVE mistake! 🤯#AmericasGP 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/jdp34GTWti
— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) April 16, 2023
And while maybe it was just coincidence, Bagnaia’s fateful fall came just as it looked like he was going to finally break Rins’ resistance. He had just set, moments prior, a personal fastest sector.
Bagnaia insists this was not a simple rider error, that something about the latest Ducati is leading to these crashes. But they do fit a pattern that’s cropped up plenty of times in his MotoGP career so far.
There is no joy in seeing Bagnaia crashing out of the lead. Beyond the obvious reason why – no crash is good to see given the danger involved – that proneness to calamity is something that he’s clearly painfully aware of and has never shied away from talking about and being self-critical about. Normally, you’d want that kind of self-awareness to be rewarded.
But, well, the 2023 MotoGP title race needs this Bagnaia error run right now.
Every single other rider that tracks as a realistic season-long foe for Bagnaia is either hobbled or in difficult form. Enea Bastianini and Marc Marquez are rehabbing, Fabio Quartararo is struggling to return to past glories with a Yamaha that’s a touch more powerful but appears also more flawed, and Aprilia is tripping over one problem after another with either Maverick Vinales, Aleix Espargaro or both.
And if you want ‘the call to come from inside the house’, i.e. a challenge from the satellite Ducatis, championship leader Marco Bezzecchi wasn’t really on pace all weekend, while Jorge Martin was but was ill and had his own unnecessary-looking ‘not again?!’ crash.
Had Bagnaia held on to 20 points at Termas and 25 at COTA, he’d be at 98 now, almost a full race weekend of points clear, and massively clear of any of the other earlier-projected title contenders.
He has been the clear best in 2023 in terms of range of pace. At his weakest so far this season – Termas – he still looked eminently capable of scoring good points. At his strongest he’s looked absolutely untouchable. Pace-wise.
But Bagnaia just can’t shake off that tag. His wins just don’t feel nailed-on. His crashes are not a shock. And it’s hard to honestly say whether it’s a matter of risk-reward – like what Ducati specifically told him to work on ahead of 2023 – or just a general propensity for falling off.
He’s still your 2023 title favourite. A slower Bagnaia with crash problems already mounted a genuine championship challenge in 2021, and an equally-fast Bagnaia with crash problems overcame a massive 91-point deficit in 2022.
But he had the pace to make it look like ‘game over’ already. And while maybe that would’ve been OK for the season spectacle – the race-by-race action remains top-class – a bit of championship intrigue never goes amiss.
