On Track Off Road No.181

Pecco Bagnaia: World Champ
The 2018 Moto2 World Champion has all the
ingredients to be MotoGP’s next big thing
Francesco ‘Pecco’ Bagnaia would
seem to have it all. 21 years, looks,
unwavering focus, the backing of
Italy’s highest-profile team and the most
potent infrastructure through the VR46
Academy and now a place in the record
books of Grand Prix motorcycle racing.
In just his second year of Moto2 competition
and the last season with that
distinctive screech of 600cc Honda engines,
#42 has achieved the distinction
of world champion a year after Academy-mate
and friend Franco Morbidelli
shined the gold FIM winner’s medal.
Add a confirmed seat with the Alma
Pramac Ducati team in MotoGP for 2019
and Bagnaia is really moving places.
The Italian delivered SKY Racing Team
VR46’s first title this year after a tense
duel with Miguel Oliveira while watching
teammate Luca Marini mature and
develop into a Grand Prix winner in his
own right.
We interviewed Pecco in Jerez 2017 and
found a rider eager, anxious and with
the obvious inner drive and demeanour
of belief that he was firmly on the
road to the MotoGP class. Thanks to his
talk with Neil Morrison early in 2018 he
found out what it was like for him to be
leading the world. Now, a few months
later, he’s world champion and undoubtedly
the definition of ‘excitement’ in a
buck of young talent that include Oliveira
and Joan Mir that will mix up the
MotoGP elite in 2019.
For VR46 it meant a second successive
champion in their stable and vindication
of the work done by the programme overseen
by the world’s most famous racer.
Bagnaia seems like a different character -
and racer even – compared to Morbidelli.
Due to Oliveira he arguably had a tougher
route to the crown.
“We speak a lot about this when we
[want to] ‘lose time’: we ask ‘is Franco
stronger or is it Pecco?’ We don’t know!”
laughs Valentino Rossi. “For me it looks
like Pecco has more natural talent but at
the same time Franco is more…[makes
a ‘f**k you fist’] is more strong, more
‘bad’! I think this is the biggest difference.
It looks like Franco ‘works’ more on the
bike is more aggressive. Pecco, for me, is
something more natural and with a smile.
I don’t know who is the strongest. I think
both are very strong. I think next year in
MotoGP they can have a similar performing
bike so maybe we can see how they
fight.”
Ironically – prior to the season-closer at
Valencia – both Bagnaia and Morbidelli
had exactly the same stats in their championship-winning
campaigns: eight wins
and twelve podiums. So Pecco ended up
losing bragging rights after the Portuguese
wet-weather triumph. He could well
become the de facto ‘second lieutenant’
to Rossi in the Academy set-up but this
would just be another highlight to add to
his blindingly shimmering list of ‘things
going for him’.