MotoGP | Domenicali: Bagnaia and Bastianini on equal terms. Will it (really) be like this? [RACING TITLES]

It will be due to the (undeniable) amount of talent that unites them, or perhaps due to the (dominant) speed that characterized the official Desmo in the last championship which they will both ride next year, or finally, and very elementary, it will be because more than half (11) of the races played in 2022 (20) were won by them.

Having said all this, the fact remains that the long lead-up to the season to come is a pressing, and predictable, question as to what contours the coexistence in the Red suit between Pecco Bagnaia and Enea Bastianini will take on. Everyone is inevitably asking this, also because the intriguing and concrete prospect of an Italian derby, on an Italian motorbike and in an Italian team can really deliver a significant input of sporting and media attention on a MotoGP that is still too fragile, by the own admission of its leaders, after illustrious retirements and injuries in recent years.

The last to ask, in recent days, were the colleagues of Corriere dello Sport to the CEO of Ducati, Claudio Domenicali, attentive and serene as he enjoyed the celebrations for a triumphal 2022, in MotoGP as well as in Superbike, but also and already projected towards a 2023 is increasingly upon us. When asked about the coexistence between Pecco and Enea, Domenicali did not mince words but did not even hand out captain's armbands, declaring that the two will start "certainly on equal footing", using the same technical configuration that will also apply to the two bikes of the Pramac team, ridden from Zarco and Martin.

A declaration in the name of diplomatic corporate communication, and which the time that still separates from here to the first checkered flag on the calendar allows us to unleash without particular difficulty. It's obvious that the dynamics of the season will have an impact, and it's obvious that the DNA shown by the two parties involved (including some initial disagreements) gives rise to the possibility that in just a handful of months the music could be very different.

It is difficult to imagine a new world champion Bagnaia evaluating different hierarchies from the idea of ​​being, and logically, the first driver in the team. It is equally unlikely to believe that Bastianini, having his first experience riding an official Ducati, could suffer, psychologically, the environmental subjugation that would be expected of the latest arrival.

Talent, as mentioned at the beginning, but also character and personality, a whole series of elements that fill the tank of ambitions of these two very fast and very different boys. It won't be easy and it won't be trivial, but this has been known since Ducati announced the Beast, rather than Martin, as Bagnaia's partner, and Pecco's title victory has only added a further, and certainly not relative , a piece of uncertainty in a relationship that from any perspective you evaluate it promises to be (already) crackling.