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Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring delivered good news for Ducati rider Pecco Bagnaia, with the Italian looking far stronger than he had the previous weekend at the same track.
He fought for the podium in both wet and dry conditions before eventually finishing second behind only KTM rider Brad Binder – who is crucially already out of the championship fight for 2021.
Running at the front for the opening laps in a duel with Marc Marquez and Fabio Quartararo, Bagnaia perfectly timed both his entry into the pits for wet tyres and his late charge through the pack to take second – and to steal crucial points off title leader Quartararo as the Frenchman slumped to seventh.
It means Bagnaia went from fourth in the championship and 58 points off Quartararo to second and 47 points behind.
Yet speaking after the race, Bagnaia was adamant that closing down the gap hadn’t radically altered his situation in the title fight, thanks in large part to just how strong Quartararo has looked throughout the entire 2021 season so far.
“It’s the same situation as before,” he said when asked about the championship picture by The Race afterwards. “47 points is still a lot. Maybe another race like this for Fabio will help us, but he’s very strong and he’s having an incredible season.
“With a Yamaha, at this track where they struggle a bit more, to stay on top isn’t easy. He deserves his points at the minute.”
But while Bagnaia’s half-right in arguing that Quartararo has been a standout this year, it’s not quite fair to say that he’s been consistent in every single race.
In fact, we’ve seen Quartararo struggling on multiple occasions. Admittedly, it has sometimes been thanks to external pressures, but that doesn’t matter when it comes to the points table at the end of the year.
Arm pump at the Spanish Grand Prix cost him a certain victory, and while surgery immediately afterwards seems to have corrected the issue, it’s pretty much a given that once a rider is struck down with it once, it’ll re-occur at a later date.
And then of course there was the high-profile incident with his opening leathers at the Catalan Grand Prix, where Quartararo conceded valuable points and a podium finish when he was forced to pull over at the side of the track to zip himself up again.
However, more than either of those two wobbles in what has otherwise been a pretty flawless season, it was the Austrian Grand Prix that showed what could be the Frenchman’s biggest weakness.
Never a rider who looks totally confident in wet conditions, there was a reason why Quartararo celebrated his third-placed finish in Le Mans as if it was a championship win – because limiting the damage there by taking an unexpectedly strong finish in a flag-to-flag race was a huge deal for him.
But he wasn’t as lucky in Austria – and with MotoGP moving in Europe’s autumn and races like Silverstone, Misano and even Aragon coming up, more wet weather is hardly out of the question.
That’s aided by the fact that some of those tracks, places where the Ducati might have traditionally struggled in the past, are no longer as unfavourable to Bagnaia as they once were.
Just like the Red Bull Ring is no longer the bolted-on Ducati win that it once was, places like the home of the British Grand Prix don’t automatically count against the Desmosedicis either.
“This result, not just the podium but the weekend, gives us a lot of confidence for the next races,” said Bagnaia of his second place in Austria.
“It will not be easy because Silverstone is a track where Yamaha and Suzuki can make a difference, but this year we have done some great things at some tracks where we were struggling.
“I think that the extra motivation we have to do our work gives us the potential to win.”
