This time last season Francesco Bagnaia won the Dutch TT from pole to give his previously flagging championship campaign a crucial boost.
He’d just fallen 91 points behind Fabio Quartararo, but victory in the Netherlands launched him into a golden run that would overhaul the Frenchman and deliver him his maiden title.
In 2023 Bagnaia arrives at the reigning championship, the title leader and favourite to claim the crown again.
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But he isn’t without company at the top of the standings.
Jorge Martin is lurking.
Martin is enjoying a purple patch with Pramac. He hasn’t been off the podium in either a sprint or a grand prix since before France, where he won his first Saturday race, and in Germany he was peerless to defeat Bagnaia on both days to claim maximum points.
He’s now second in the riders championship, just 16 points down.
Pramac fields factory-spec Ducati bikes, and Martin is a highly rated Ducati prospect. He’s now turned his undoubted raw speed into formidable race pace, and it’s difficult to imagine him waiting long for his next victory.
“If he starts to be too close, I will ask for team orders,” Bagnaia joked after finishing second.
“No, but to fight against a factory team and fighting against a satellite team is always the same.
“Ducati has this strategy to give the maximum to all the teams, and I think it’s the key to their success.”
The key to Ducati’s success could also be Bagnaia’s biggest personal hurdle to a second championship.
HOW DUCATI MADE IT TO THE TOP
Ducati’s strategy to win big in MotoGP will be on full display in the Netherlands this weekend, where Bologna had won just once in the entire history of the iconic Dutch TT before Bagnaia’s drought-breaker last season.
For decades this has been Yamaha and Honda territory, with Casey Stoner’s 2008 victory on a Desmosedici previously the only exception.
But really the entire sport was Yamaha and Honda territory during that time.
Ducati battle produces memorable finish | 00:49
Ducati’s rapid rise to its current status of undisputed dominance has been as rapid as the violent fall of the Japanese marques.
Two years ago Quartararo won the title. Last year he got close but was outgunned. This year he has no chance.
Honda is in a similar crisis. It was unbeatable in 2019, but an effort to redesign its bike in Marc Márquez’s injury absence last year has taken it way off piste to the point it can’t find its way back.
Another Ducati win this weekend will further emphasise the enormous gap between the Italian bike and its Japanese rivals.
But the story is about more than just a changing of the guard. It’s the way Ducati has seized the ascendancy that’s most interesting.
Its route to the top has been different, and that’s producing slightly different outcomes.
Honda and Yamaha have most recently built themselves around single riders: Marc Márquez and Fabio Quartararo.
Ducati hasn’t been so willing to confine itself to just one star.
“Their strategic mistake was to follow just one rider, to base the development of their bikes on the results and sensations of the protagonist of each brand, therefore Fabio Quartararo for Yamaha and Marc Márquez for Honda,” Ducati general manage Gigi Dall’Igna told Italy’s La Stampa.
“Often what the top rider, the champion tells you, isn‘t the truth, because his talent covers the problems the bike suffers from.
“Paradoxically, to develop a project well you have to listen to all the voices, all the pilots.”
Ducati’s approach is why Enea Bastianini could mount his unlikely title challenge even on a year-old bike last year.
This year Marco Bezzecchi spent time at the top of the standings. Luca Marini, Alex Márquez and Johann Zarco are all consistently fast.
And of course Jorge Martin is in the early stages of mounting a championship challenge.
“[If] you want to improve, you have to give everything to all the riders to improve the package,” Bagnaia said. “Because then you can check the data, you can improve, and every time, every session, the top engineers go to the teams, to the riders, to ask what happened, what the feeling is.
“I think it’s a strategy that can be good. It’s the best way to improve, the best way to have a battle, and it’s for sure why we are improving a lot.”
Martin holds off Bagnaia in Germany win | 00:32
WHERE THE JAPANESE BRANDS HAVE FALLEN DOWN
That all-in approach is why Ducati has such a large stable of bikes. It has a group of three customers at a time no other manufacturer has more than one. Yamaha has none, having lost its sole partner, RNF, to Aprilia this year.
Yamaha is keen to find another customer, and it’s speculated that Valentino Rossi’s VR46 brand could defect to the Japanese marque after the Italian legend signed an ambassador deal with Iwata.
If that were to come to pass, Yamaha boss Lin Jarvis has already said that his team would learn from the way Ducati handles its relationship to forge a stronger bond with its satellite outfits.
“We don‘t look directly at Ducati, but the package we will offer when that happens will certainly not be the same as the one we offered five years ago,” he said, per Motorsport. “The relationship with the satellite teams has become much closer.
“We have to be able to offer a good deal with good support at all levels.”
It’s an attitude Honda has also struggled with.
Earlier this year Álex Rins was sufficiently moved by his status at LCR to publicly complain that Honda wasn’t using him enough in its efforts to develop out of its hole.
“I feel that Honda relies little on me,” he said, per Autosport. “I feel untapped.
“A small example is what happened in Argentina. After testing Marc‘s chassis, which is different from the one Joan had been using, I asked them if they would also let me test Mir’s to get an overall idea.
“They said no, even though they have spare units.
“I tried to talk to them, but they are very square. It‘s not that they don’t listen to me, but that they don’t take advantage of me.”
He was also denied early access to the Kalex chassis, though there were signs more recently that he’s being better included in the brand’s plans.
DUCATI’S DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD
It’s not just the cross-sharing of information that benefits the breed. Competitive tension also has an impact.
Tension is good for competition, and not just for those watching. Tension can push competitors to find a higher level of performance, which in turn brings the whole team — or in this case teams — along with them.
Martin has been forced to dig deep this season, having been rejected for a promotion to the factory team this year in favour of Bastianini. He has the tools at his disposal to make an impact, and in the last two weeks he’s been making the most of them.
That in turn is forcing Bagnaia to push himself further, knowing that individual ability will be the differentiator in a battle between almost identical bikes.
That’s great for Ducati of course. With so many bikes up the front, it’s almost guaranteed the riders title regardless of which of its stars prevails.
But that’s not necessarily good for Bagnaia.
Even last year, when Bagnaia was in an almost exclusive battle with Yamaha’s Quartararo, the brand refused to intervene with team orders to prevent Bastianini interfering with the battle.
That was particularly notable at the penultimate Malaysian Grand Prix, where the two diced for the lead and where a crash for the still accident-prone Bagnaia would’ve lost him the title lead.
The same will obviously be the case this year given there’s no clear external challenger.
Bagnaia will of course back himself to prevail, and the factory team will almost always hold a competitive edge, even if slender, over a satellite squad — and a satellite rider has never won a championship.
But it does mean when he’s out on track battling Martin, he’s out there on his own, more so than other factory riders who have come before him.
How that influences this year’s championship battle will be fascinating.
HOW CAN I WATCH IT
The 2023 German Grand Prix is live and ad-break free during racing on Kayo and Fox Sports.
The two timed practice sessions are on Friday night at 6:45pm (AEST) and 11pm.
Final practice starts on Saturday at 6:10pm ahead of qualifying at 6:50pm, with lights out on the sprint at 11pm.
Sunday actions gets underway with the warm-up at 5:45pm before the German Grand Prix at 10pm.