MotoGP Aragon J3 – Enea Bastianini (Ducati /5) “I ruined my chances on Friday”

The twelfth Grand Prix of the 2024 season is coming to an end, and it will perhaps be the most difficult to take for the Ducati Lenovo Team riders. If Pecco Bagnaia is understandably frustrated after his retirement, Enea Bastianini was no less so despite the fifth place he achieved at the cost of a great comeback. 

Starting from 14th on the grid is never ideal when you want to keep your title hopes alive. At Aragon, Enea Bastianini had a bad run at the start of the weekend, which had an impact on his results in the races that followed.

In addition to a personal underperformance, the #23 witnessed the outrageous domination of his biggest rival in the championship, Marc Marquez. Failing to score enough points to contain the Spaniard behind him, he also leaves Aragon having had to give up third place in the Drivers' standings.

After analyzing what he lacked, the Italian explains that he ruined his chances of finishing in style on Friday, when he failed to qualify directly for Q2, by taking 15th place in practice.

"I'm not happy because it was a very difficult race, maybe the most difficult of the season, entrusts Bastianini at the finish. Friday's day surely had a significant impact on my chances of doing well here in Aragon. I had the speed in the race, but it was difficult to put all the pieces together to have a weekend that lived up to expectations."

His start to the race on Sunday wasn't perfect either. However, things went rather well afterwards, as Bastianini took advantage of a good pace in the last few laps, and some racing incidents, to reach the finish in fifth place, behind the KTMs of Brad Binder and Pedro Acosta.

"I tried to overtake many times, but quite often things didn't go as planned, He continues. I went wide a lot. The track was really dirty off the racing line and that made everything a lot more difficult. It's a real shame, because I think we could have gotten more out of this weekend, but we have to be happy with this fifth place."

The Ducati factory team will therefore arrive at Misano with a desire for revenge. One to restore its image and recover its third place in the championship. The other to fight with Jorge Martin and reposition itself for the title race at home.