Does Ducati need to step in after Bagnaia-Alex Marquez incident?

Sunday’s controversial late-race clash between Francesco Bagnaia and Alex Marquez at the Aragon MotoGP took both Ducati riders out of the final podium place.

It also meant that, having arrived with five-point title lead, reigning champion Bagnaia left Spain battered, bruised and 23 points adrift of Jorge Martin.

In the latest edition of the Crash.net MotoGP podcast, host Jordan Moreland asked:

“It was the big talking point of the race. Pecco Bagnaia and Alex Marquez battling for the podium. It looked like Bagnaia was going to get Alex. It was just a matter of time. And then the incident happened.

“What was your take on it? I think it was a recent incident. Obviously each rider is blaming the other…”

“A nightmare weekend for Bagnaia. His lowest score from an event since the Sprint format began last year,” replied Crash.net MotoGP editor Pete McLaren.

“Just about everything went wrong for him, the two tyre ‘issues’, qualifying on the dirty side of the track and just to finish it all off a collision when - as you say - it looked like it was just a matter of time and you would get the 3rd place from Alex Marquez.

“Obviously Alex was racing in front of his home fans and looking to potentially join Marc on the podium for his historic comeback. So you can imagine he wasn't keen to give it up and it basically came down to just not enough room for the two of them.

“The question then becomes, who saw who? And who should have given more room? The Stewards said no further action. They said that they looked at some machine data. Exactly what we don't know.

“But the data side was interesting because when Pecco then spoke after the decision he claimed that the data showed that Alex maybe didn't back off as much as you would expect of a rider in a collision.

“When both riders involved in an incident are on the same bikes, the factory can see the data for both. That’s exactly what Ducati will have done. We know they also did it after Portimao, when Marc Marquez and Bagnaia collided and Marc gave an almost throwaway line to settle the argument of who was at fault by saying, ‘Ducati can see all the data…’

“Now we have Pecco saying the data shows that he wasn't to blame. So did the Stewards get to see that as well? Would it have changed things if they had seen what Pecco says was visible on the data? Who knows.

“The other thing that would have been useful is the kind of ‘visor cam’ view we got from Alex Rins at the private Misano test, to know where each rider was looking!

“A racing incident, but big implications. Pecco was lucky that Marc stopped Martin from taking maximum points this weekend and the best news is that neither Pecco nor Alex Marquez were seriously injured.”

“Lewis, what's your take on it?” Moreland added.

“I'm going to play Devil Devil's advocate a bit with data, because whenever anyone brings up data, I instantly think of Honda in 2015, where they were adamant they had data that Valentino had kicked Marc and were going to show it to the world!” said MotoGP journalist Lewis Duncan.

“But if I was going to apportion blame, I would give Pecco a little bit more of it because we've seen this before. We saw it in Portugal. We saw it a little bit at Jerez in the Sprint race. Pecco doesn't really seem to know when to pick his fights.

“We saw in in Portugal with Marc. Whether or not you could see him on the outside, you know he was going to come back in so why are you putting your bike there? You know that's going to end in contact, play the corner better.

“Jerez when he kind of got sandwiched between Bezzecchi and Brad Binder - you're quicker than the two of them, back out of it. Don't fight it. And it was the same with this one.

“You’ve seen that Alex hasn’t looked around. He was behind Alex when Alex ran wide into Turn 12. You've seen that he doesn't know that you're there.  You know that's a pinch point at Turn 13, when you flick right. And Alex is more than likely going to be there.

“I think you have to play the game a bit better, especially when you're a championship challenger. I would argue that Alex should have looked behind and he could have been more like, ‘It's gonna be tight. I'll back out of it and see if I can fight back after’. And Pecco should have done the same, ‘there's still time here. I can get it done’.

“On all of those occasions I've mentioned, Pecco has come off the worst and he's lost points from it. I think Ducati needs to sit down with Pecco a little bit and [say] when it comes to engagement with other riders, to pick your battles. ‘If we finish 4th today, that's better than finishing with no points’.

“I think Pecco sometimes maybe struggles a little bit with settling for what is on offer. When you look at Martin, for example, these past few weeks, second has been what's there for him and he's taken it. And now he's 23 points in the lead of the championship.”

Moreland replied: “Pete, the incident reminds me of last season with Bagnaia and Vinales at Le Mans. And it comes at a bad time because Martin isn’t making mistakes and is bringing in the points."

“And that leads on to the question, that we all hate, which is the team orders thing,” McLaren said. “Because you can’t help but compare Sunday with past years where the other Ducati riders knew they had to give the title contenders a bit more room.

“Is there a bit of ambiguity at the moment, because we’re not far enough into the season to say to the other Ducati riders; ‘you’re mathematically out of it, so just step back in that situation’.

“Maybe Pecco and Martin, because they are ahead in the title chase, think they will be given more room by other Ducati riders? But those riders are actually thinking, ‘We haven't been told anything yet, we're still racing hard for every position’. 

"Then there is the question of what would you tell Marc Marquez and Bastianini, who are a step behind the top two, but still have a realistic chance."

Duncan added: “I think Ducati does need to have a look at that for its own sake. What you don't want is for Alex Marquez to have another incident with Pecco Bagnaia and then all of a sudden Martin gets more points while Marc is up the front.

“We've seen how kind of quite poisonous the fan base can be in those situations, when they think ‘this has happened, sabotage blah blah blah’.

“Ducati needs to step in front of that and say: ‘OK, here's your title challengers. Here are the guys that can win the championship. If you're not one of them, do not race them hard’.

“We don't want to see that, but it's the nightmare situation [for Ducati] with Martin leading the championship. They can't really let Martin go to Aprilia with the number one plate. 

"I thought it was interesting when we saw Gigi Dall’Igna after Marc crossed the line. He looked very… troubled. He looked weighed down by something.

“That was not a happy man. It was almost as if he's looked at that and gone: Pecco’s in the gravel, Marc’s winning races - which they were kind of worried about upsetting the equilibrium before they allowed him to come to Gresini in the first place - and Martin’s leading the championship.

“They have to think, we could have had both those two guys in our stable had the situation been managed differently, had Marc been up for going to Pramac.