#1 or #63? Bagnaia undecided - but this is how he will choose…
The Ducati rider has carried the #63 for his entire premier class career but new opportunities have arisen after he captured the MotoGP championship on the final day of the 2022 season.
He could now become the first reigning champion since Casey Stoner in 2012 to run the #1.
"I've changed my mind quite a few times, so I've decided that on Tuesday, right before the photo session with the 2023 bike, I will arrive with both numbers and I will stick on what I feel in that exact moment.
"Right now, I still don't know which one I will choose between the world champion's number 1 and my number 63."
He added: "Every now and then I think about the fact of being World Champion, but more than anything else I get excited when I think about the fact that I'm the fastest man in the world on a motorbike."
Bagnaia revealed that, unlike many of his peers, he can now legally ride a motorcycle on the road: "This summer I got my motorcycle license. I was afraid of not remembering certain things, riding with two hands, because when you go slowly I spontaneously remove a hand and instead I had to stay all the time with my hands attached to the handlebars.”
He went into his childhood and how he first became obsessed with bikes: "As a child my father and my uncle rode motorcycles at an amateur level, my grandfather gave me the first three-wheeled motorcycle.
“When I was five years old, the motocross bike I used to ride in my grandfather's garden arrived and I destroyed everything.
“I tried to touch with my knee on the ground, but it was not possible and they understood that my direction was more on speed."
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
