Francesco Bagnaia’s is a proper MotoGP success story.
From winning races on unfancied Mahindra machinery in Moto3, to Moto2 title success and carrying the weight of expectation that comes with the VR46 tag attached into MotoGP, Bagnaia has put in the hard yards.
In isolation, Bagnaia’s two world championships won’t be remembered in the same vein as any of mentor Valentino Rossi’s or Marc Marquez’s, for example. While it was impressive to overturn a 91-point deficit in 2022, he did so against a Fabio Quartararo who had a clear machinery disadvantage on the Yamaha.
His fight for a second world title in 2023 against Jorge Martin was much more intense. But Martin was new to the pressures of a MotoGP championship war and later in the season especially that began to show.
That is not to take away from Bagnaia’s achievements, though, as so many come to the hunting ground and come out sucking their thumb. Not only did Bagnaia achieve the ultimate dream, he did so while also helping mould the dominant Ducati era we now live in.
Ducati has fielded a lot of good riders since Bagnaia became a genuine championship prospect in 2021. But none of them have been as good as him: two world titles, 29 grand prix wins, a half-century of podiums, 24 poles in 107 events for Ducati since making his debut in the class in 2019 with Pramac.
He has surpassed Casey Stoner’s achievements for the Bologna manufacturer, but any ranking of MotoGP’s best riders will almost certainly place the Australian double world champion higher. Arguably, Stoner was the more naturally talented rider and a longer career could have seen the Australian’s stats boosted significantly.
But you can only really accurately judge someone by the era they race in. And Bagnaia’s is easily MotoGP’s most competitive and most difficult. The field spread is narrow, the weekend format places so much on Friday’s, while the aerodynamics of these bikes makes them - according to one crew chief Crash spoke to in Barcelona - nasty things to ride.
The last time MotoGP was in Barcelona in 2024, Bagnaia and Martin were 10s out of reach. At the Malaysian GP earlier this month, with so much on the line, Bagnaia was again 10s clear of third. Eight DNFs in 2024 is a major blot on the copybook, but the 10 grands prix victories - putting him on a par with the likes of Marquez, Stoner and Jorge Lorenzo - in a single season can’t hide the fact Bagnaia deserved this championship as much as Martin does.
“People, because I read ‘maybe he’s a good champion’… A rider who wins two years in a row, it means they are an incredible champion - not a good champion,” Marc Marquez said when asked by Crash.net how he would assess Bagnaia’s reign as MotoGP champion.
“He’s a very, very good champion. To win in a single year in MotoGP, not everyone can win, you need to have the talent, but then you can have some doubts, that maybe he won because of blah. But when you win two years in a row, in the third year you are fighting again in the last race for the title, it means you are a very, very good champion.
"I will try to learn from him because he knows very well the team, he knows the bike very well and this will be my target, and be close to him. But he will be the reference.”
Bagnaia’s strengths on track have always been highly commended by his peers. And his spirited efforts to win both the sprint and the grand prix at the Barcelona finale to keep his hopes alive as long as possible is testament to why.
But Bagnaia has also embodied what it should mean to be a world champion in the way he has handled himself off track and spoken on behalf of the championship.
Franco Morbidelli - who has had a more intimate insight into Bagnaia’s reign as a fellow VR46 Academy member - said: “He brought a very high level of commitment and professionalism that as our sport is going up and up and up, his dedication and his professionalism and his approach to motorcycle racing was something different. That’s one of his main qualities, his main things that made him make the difference on everyone else in these last three seasons.”
And it’s even more creditable because it’s something he has clearly worked on over the years. Across 2022, as Bagnaia was fighting for his first title, his drink/driving incident in Ibiza in the summer and his ill-thought out Dennis Rodman tribute helmet at the San Marino GP hung over him somewhat even after the dust settled.
Everyone makes mistakes and is allowed to, so long as they learn from them. Bagnaia has done that immeasurably.
That was especially true in the immediate aftermath of the devastating Valencia flooding. While its importance paled in comparison to the horrifying scenes emerging from Spain, the disaster came on the eve of the penultimate round of the championship and cast doubt over what would happen with the final event.
Both championship challengers handled the situation with grace, but it was one that would ultimately affect Bagnaia more. He acknowledged that the final round being totally scrapped could be unfair for him, but put full trust in whatever decision Dorna decided to make. What was clear for him was that the final round should not happen in Valencia.
On Friday at Sepang, he told the media he would not race in Valencia this year even if it cost him the chance to win the championship. Whether this had any impact on MotoGP ending up in Barcelona, it was clear from that point that the world champion had spoken and his words could not be ignored.
At other points this year Bagnaia has taken a dignified stand. When future team-mate Marc Marquez was being booed on the San Marino GP podium, Bagnaia wagged his finger in disapproval towards the fans who were doing so. He would publicly call this type of behaviour disrespectful two weeks later at the Emilia Romagna GP.
Bagnaia has also been caught in the crossfire between his friend and mentor Rossi taking potshots at Marquez. But he held his head high above it, refusing to get involved in any way whenever asked about it.
And as a final show of his quality as a champion, when asked in parc ferme after losing the championship, Bagnaia said gracefully: “I don’t want to remove the shine from Jorge. I think he deserves what he achieved and this day is for him. I just want to say thanks to my team for the incredible job, and all the rest is another story.”
There has been immense respect between Martin and Bagnaia this season, but much of that wouldn’t have been possible if the latter wasn’t the 2024 champion’s rival.
The next two years will ultimately come to define Bagnaia’s MotoGP career as goes up against Marquez on equal machinery at the factory Ducati team. He’s proven already he won’t be a pushover, though the form Marquez has shown on an aging GP23 this year will be cause for concern.
But where Bagnaia stands at the end of 2026 should not detract from what he has already done in MotoGP.
In the fullness of time, he may not be remembered as the most popular. But Bagnaia will always stand as a great world champion for MotoGP…
