Ducati CEO Claudio Domenicali likes to put his foot in it in TV interviews. His statements regarding the duel Bagnaia once morest Bastianini poison the climate.
Claudio Domenicali, the CEO of Ducati Motor Holding, has often put his foot in his mouth with ill-considered statements. Also on Sunday, following the exciting MotoGP finale in Misano, he allowed himself to be carried away to make a statement in a TV interview. The top Ducati boss described the attack once morest the leading Pecco Bagnaia in the last lap by Bastianini as “undesirable”.
Heartbeats then continued to rise at Ducati when Bastianini manager Carlo Pernat suggested with a grin in the Ducati box that half of the prize money should be handed over to Enea, who had just lost out.
Pernat assured SPEEDWEEK.com shortly following the race on Sunday that Bastianini was fully on course for victory. That means: He paid little attention to Bagnaia’s World Cup situation.
Bagnaia and «La Bestia» Bastianini will share the Ducati Lenovo box in 2023 and 2024, but the two Italians will not achieve such peaceful coexistence as Bagnaia and Jack Miller.
Bagnaia won 0.034 seconds ahead of the beast, Ducati also celebrated a double victory at their home race – and Pecco reduced the gap to Quartararo (Yamaha) from 44 to 30 points with the fourth win in a row.
Nevertheless: This nerve-wracking finale brought the Ducati Corse managers Gigi Dall’Igna, Paolo Ciabatti and Davide Tardozzi to their coronary stress limit.
Of course, the 2016 Argentine GP crossed the minds of Ducati managers when Iannone had knocked his teammate Dovizioso out of the saddle in the penultimate corner of the final lap, as well as himself. Up to that point, the Ducati duo had held 1st and 2nd place.
Domencali stood on tiptoe like a ballet dancer throughout Sunday’s final lap.
But the Ducati CEO didn’t appreciate the winning mentality of Bastianini, who has already won three races this year. Because Bastianini had already put Bagnaia under a lot of pressure at Le Mans.
Domenicali: «We spoke to our boys before Misano. They know not to be too aggressive towards each other. I think Enea behaved well until the last lap. But the last braking maneuver on the final lap was undesirable because he had to take a lot of risks. We didn’t like that.”
Carlo Pernat, manager of the runner-up Bastianini, on the other hand, was enthusiastic regarding the aggressiveness of his 24-year-old protégé.
Because Enea showed that he doesn’t shy away from any opponent and above all doesn’t want to take a kind of stable order to heart seven races before the end of the season.
Pernat jokingly demanded half the prize money for Enea and is now preparing for a nerve-wracking time at Ducati, where Bagnaia is currently the clear hope No. 1 as the first title candidate and will possibly also be the most promising driver in the World Championship in 2023.
Because three MotoGP brand world championship wins in a row are small consolation for Ducati. Only the drivers’ championship counts. 15 years following Casey Stoner, it would be high time that what has become the best motorcycle also wins the most important championship.
According to Domenicali’s latest statements, Carlo Pernat doesn’t just see the future at Ducati as rosy, but rather a bit bleak.
But he’s being diplomatic. “It was a wonderful Sunday for Ducati. Next year’s factory drivers achieved a magnificent double victory, separated by only 34 thousandths,” calculated Carlo in an interview with SPEEDWEEK.com. «We conceded places 1 and 2 and brought Marini to 4th place. An excellent result for Ducati at Misano, which is our track. There is nothing more to say. Basta.”
There will be plenty of explosives when in 2023 a total of five Italians (Bagnaia, Bastianini, Marini, Bezzechi and Di Giannantonio) march with Ducati, along with a Frenchman (Zarco) and two Spaniards (Jorge Martin and Alex Márquez).
So Claudio Domencali would be well advised not to constantly pour fuel on the fire. Because with a handful of title contenders, Ducati has enough explosives.
But apparently the Ducati CEO didn’t learn any lessons from the expensive Lorenzo era (Jorge received a fee of 25 million euros for two years). Domenicali exposed the proud Jorge Lorenzo with an unnecessary and hasty criticism before the 2018 Mugello GP and drove him to the competition. At the time, he publicly complained that Jorge might not get along with the Desmosedici even following almost a year and a half.
A week later, however, Lorenzo confidently triumphed at the important Ducati home GP in Mugello.
When Ducati sports director Paolo Ciabatti wanted to offer Lorenzo’s manager Albert Valera a talk regarding a new contract in Parc Fermé, the manager of the three-time MotoGP world champion replied coolly: “Too late.”
In the meantime he had reached an agreement with Repsol-Honda. However, he won two more races for Ducati in 2018. Ducati race director Gigi Dall’Igna wanted to bring Lorenzo back in the summer of 2019 and let Miller go. But HRC didn’t release Lorenzo.
Regarding the Domenicali chatter, one can only recall the aphorism of Boethius, who said: “If you had kept silent, you would have remained a philosopher.”
