March 23, 2023
The reigning World Champion doesn’t seem fearful at all
Leafing through the annals of the premier class of motorsport, it turns out that the last World Champion to win with the No. 1 on the track was Doohan back in 1998. A taboo that Bagnaia will try to dispel in the season that is about to begin (yes starts on Sunday with the GP of Portugal). In fact, Bagnaia has decided to appear at the starting line of the new World Championship with the No. 1 on his Ducati.
Don’t worry, as Bagnaia himself explains to Corriere dello Sport: “Winning is difficult, repeating yourself is even more so. But those who repeat themselves remain in history: more than a burden, the number 1 is a great stimulus”. For someone who has managed to win, as an Italian rider, on an Italian bike after 50 years, the taboo of the winning No. 1 in MotoGP doesn’t seem to be a big problem at all. Bagnaia is concentrated above all on the Sprint Race, the big news this year: “The Sprint is the biggest change ever known in my experience in the World Championship. I’m curious to see how it will be, because in the race you can’t always push from start to finish, but here you could do it with just a few laps. I’m usually good at the start and fast in the first laps.”
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