Enea Bastiani (Gresini Racing) has taken a thrilling (fourth) win at the Aragón MotoGP 2022 this Sunday after coming out on top of a thrilling final battle at the MotorLand circuit. 

The Italian pilot managed to pass his compatriotat Pecco Bagnaia (Ducati) in the last lap, breaking the Milanese rider four straight wins (Holland, Great Britain, Austria & San Marino). Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia) finished in third place behind the Italian, his first podium since Mugello at the end of May.  

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The biggest loser on the day was Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha). ‘El Diablo’ was out of the race on the first lap after crashing against Marc Marquez (Honda). This is his second blank race of the year. 

As a result of the incident his advantage in the standings has shrunk to just ten points over Bagnaia, second, and 17 over Aleix Espargaro, third. The Championship is now tighter than ever.  

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Bagnaia holds on to his pole position at the start  

Bagnaia, Miller and Bastianini held on to their top three places at the start of the Aragon MotoGP 2022. A few meters after that, however, all hell broke loose. The World Championship was turning upside down! Quartararo fell to the ground after touching Marc Marquez, whose machine was behaving oddly. 

The #93 had performed a spectacular start from thirteenth place to get close to Quartararo, who had started in seventh.  It was too much to take for his still cold tires on that first lap, and his bike reacted violently to the strain. But that was not the end of the problems for the Spaniard. Shortly after, and with a damaged RC213V, he received the impact of Takaaki Nakagami (LCR Honda). 

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For a few moments, the audience held its breath as the Japanese pilot lay in the middle of the track. Miraculously, his rivals missed him by a few millimetres. Marc retired moments later. The eighth-time champion has barely managed to complete one lap on his return to the competition.  

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First blow from ‘The Beast’ to Bagnaia  

Bastianini’s first attack came with 15 laps left to the finish line. He overtook his Milanese with ease after cutting the 0,4s that separated them. But a fiery Enea made a small mistake and lost his lead as well as 0,8 seconds to Pecco again. Behind them, Binder, Espargaró and Miller formed a compact pack, 0,6s from the lead.  

Back on track after his mistake, Bastinini made up half of the ground he had lost to come up 0,4s behind Pecco once again. There were ten laps to go and both were running just a few meters apart.  

Bastianini passes Bagnaia in the final lap  

The fight for the win was a true civil war between the two compatriots, with Enea now just 0,3s behind his new teammate for 2023. With four laps to go, they were running in parallel. 0La Bestia0 was trying to get on Pecco’s nerves without overtaking him. 

The final lap arrived and Bastianini made his move on Bagnaia to win the race, a mere 0.042s ahead of him. Behind them came Aleix Espargaro, after swallowing Brad Binder on the final lap.  

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