The Ducati champion has the first match point: but scoring 23 points more than the Spaniard from Pramac is not easy, also because in this championship it has happened…
– Milan
First match points on the racket. In the week of the ATP Finals in Turin, Pecco Bagnaia, born in the Piedmontese capital, has the first opportunity to do the encore of the world title MotoGP won last year with Ducati. In the Qatar GPthe penultimate of the season, the reigning champion is in fact 14 points ahead of Jorge Martin on Pramac’s Desmosedici and with 74 available with two races to go he has the first opportunity to achieve a championship double.
23 more points are needed
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To retain the crown, Pecco must conquer the Losail weekend at least 23 points more than the Spaniard: in this way, the 37 available at the Valencia finish would have no influence on the awarding of the title. To succeed in an undertaking that Bagnaia himself considers objectively difficult (“There is a small chance of closing the championship here, but I think it will only happen if Jorge has a problem”, he said in a conference at Losail), Pecco would still have to wait for Sunday’s GP, because any combination of Saturday’s Sprint would not make him champion.
just once
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Beyond the infinite variety of possible combinations during the Losail weekend, the history of the 2023 championship highlights how difficult it could be for Bagnaia to gain 23 points on Martin. In the 18 seasonal events held so far, including Australia where only the GP was held and not the Sprint due to weather issues, only in one circumstance Bagnaia has conquered more than 23 points on Martin. It happened in the first weekend of the season, in Portimao, with Pecco achieving the Sprint-GP double for 37 points overall and Martin stopping at 9, thanks to second place in the short race on Saturday.
quorum missed
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Pecco’s +28 in Portugal is the only time in which the Ducati rider has exceeded the ‘quorum’ of +23 over Martin which in Qatar would make him champion again. He then came close in Austria, +21 over the Spaniard (37 to 16), and in Holland, +19 (34 to 15): both solid differentials, which however in Losail would be insufficient to give him the arithmetic certainty of back to back iridescent.
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