Bagnaia Wins Final Battle, Martín Wins War

Jorge Martín is MotoGP World Champion. Despite understandable efforts to bill Barcelona as an electrifying down-to-the-wire struggle of giants, all Martín had to do was keep the bike upright and fend off any would-be “Bagnaia helpers” while maintaining a point lead. In the Saturday sprint, Francesco Bagnaia had led from Martín until the last lap when Enea Bastianini had pushed into second. This trimmed Martín’s point lead to 19.

After the race Martín said, “Emotions are high! I’ve cried a lot!

“Today I enjoyed the race. I was touching the elbow, touching the shoulder [as if] I was just training.

“I enjoyed the moment.”

Bagnaia said, “Jorge was able to be more consistent.”

Before the weekend, Bagnaia had fended off suggestions that he might “slow the race down” by not letting Martín pass, so that other Ducati riders might move up to get ahead of Martín, denying him points. Bagnaia gave two reasons for dismissing this:

On Sunday Bagnaia led every lap. Martín was second for just the first lap, then Marc Márquez (Gresini Duc) came past in fireworks-free fashion, and the race continued in that form to the end. Barcelona was Ducati 1-2-3-4 and in fifth, the retiring Aleix Espargaró on the brand Martín will ride next year: Aprilia.

Bastianini and Marco Bezzecchi, the two Ducati riders occasionally able to equal the lap times of Martín and Bagnaia, finished seventh and ninth respectively, 7.4 and 10.6 seconds out of the lead.

Bastianini: “I tried to do the maximum but I suffered from the start with the front. This has happened many times.

“[Our] potential is close to Pecco and Jorge, but I wasn’t consistent and I missed something.”

Bezzecchi said that after a very good Friday, as soon as the track was “rubberized” he started to suffer, as usual. “To limit the wear on the rear (he chose soft, like Bagnaia and Márquez) I was entering corners quite fast, but the bike was struggling, and I ended up ruining the front (tire) first.”

Hapless downfield outcomes like these were not a basis for team strategy.

Bagnaia’s performance was solid, Márquez in second has “gelled” in the latter part of the season, while Martín’s professionalism kept him focused.

We’ve seen it before. 1967 was the second of two years of intense conflict between Giacomo Agostini and Mike Hailwood, between MV Agusta’s new-and-fast-evolving triple and Honda’s power-laden RC181 four. At the final GP of the season—the Canadian—all Ago had to do to become 500 champion for the second time was stay upright behind Hailwood and hold off clubmen on classic singles behind him.

Hailwood briefly tried to strike fire between himself and his opponent (Action! Chaos! Possibilities!), but when Ago wouldn’t ignite, Mike cleared off to win by a bunch, his bike weaving impressively off corners.

In both cases a title was at stake, but sober riding determined both outcomes. Bagnaia did all that was possible, Márquez made us eager to see him and Bagnaia even-steven on the coming GP25 Ducatis, and Martín departs for Aprilia with the No. 1 plate.

Here are the top five for 2024:

Martín 508

Bagnaia 498

M. Márquez 392

Bastianini 386

Binder 217

Now that Aprilia has a world champion rider, how will it make up the difference to Ducati’s technical level? The two companies, Ducati and Aprilia, produced roughly similar numbers of machines in 2013: 58,000 and 65,000, respectively. Both companies have long experience in competition. To pay the costs of racing, outside sponsorship is essential, but Ducati has the advantage of momentum here.

In terms of technical level, Aleix Espargaró (fifth in this, his last-ever MotoGP event) said, “Aprilia is working hard. They brought me a new engine. I even had a little bit more rpm for a Friday, and I’m flying in the straight.

“We don’t have traction, we don’t have grip. Just Ducati is enjoying it and we are struggling a lot.”

Riders now on Aprilia recall better corner grip in 2023. Rear tire wear has led to inconsistent results this year. Also spoken of are not only some lack of bottom and midrange torque, but also difficulty applying what there is. Deficient acceleration especially immediately after an upshift also suggests a torque band lacking width.

Top-end power and acceleration (i.e., high torque across a useful range) are antithetical. A major element in acceleration is a high compression ratio, but standing in its way is the absolute need to limit intake and exhaust valve lift at TDC during valve overlap. High lift is useful in allowing negative exhaust waves to empty the combustion space and begin intake flow before the piston has even begun to move on its intake stroke. But high lift means deep piston cutouts for valve clearance, which lower compression ratio.

It is a great art to have both strong acceleration and top speed, and at the moment Ducati is the master here. Can Aprilia match or exceed that achievement?

Aprilia is a leader in aero, most notably in shaping the fairing’s side panels to form a venturi above the pavement at high lean angle, generating grip-boosting downforce. Despite this, it failed to achieve consistency in 2024.

Yamaha and Honda are currently ranked “D,” meaning that they will enjoy continued concessions allowing in-season engine development. Other teams must, under an October decision, use their 2025 homologated engine without modification through 2025 and 2026—no in-season development. This means Aprilia must complete development of its engine before the next season begins. As the Thai GP is on March 2 that means only a little over three months remain until engine packages must be finished.

We can imagine that Ducati presently has the clearest idea of the trends that promise improvement. It has had the benefit of guidance from the information generated by having eight bikes on the grid. This coming season Aprilia will have four and Ducati six.

As preseason testing starts today, Tuesday, November 19, with two more to come (Sepang, Malaysia, and Thailand) before racing begins, we will have little teaser peeks at what’s new and how it measures up. Oh, the pleasure of anticipation!