How does Enea Bastianini rate his title chances after Indonesia MotoGP sprint?
“Now I am much closer…”
Enea Bastianini concedes his hopes of winning the 2024 MotoGP title are still “distant” despite closing his points deficit in the Indonesian Grand Prix sprint.
The factory Ducati rider brushed off a “disaster” start, in which he dropped one place from fifth on the grid, in the sprint race at Mandalika on Saturday to miss the win to his team-mate Francesco Bagnaia by just 0.107s.
With championship leader Jorge Martin scoring no points after a crash out of the lead on lap one, Bastianini’s second-place finish means he is now just 50 points behind the Pramac rider.
But asked, given the latest mistake for Martin, if his chances at fighting for the title were now stronger, Bastianini said: “Now I am much closer, 50 points can be better compared to yesterday.
“Well, it’s a target, can be my target. But to be realistic it’s a bit distant, this objective for me. But let’s see.”
Bastianini set the fastest lap of the sprint and was generally the quickest rider throughout the 13-lap contest.
With a better start, fighting for victory is something he feels would have been possible.
“Probably with a better start it was much easier to fight for the victory,” he added.
“After, you don’t know if you can win.
“But without any rider in front of me, I can be much faster, I can brake how I want and can be a solution to win the race.”
During Friday’s practices, Bastianini had some of the best race pace and remains a favourite to battle for victory in Sunday’s grand prix.
“Will be difficult tomorrow because the medium tyre needs two, three laps to be ready,” he cautioned.
“And yesterday I made my best after 20 laps of tyre. This is good, but also we need to check the start.
“Maybe, I don’t know if I can use the soft for tomorrow - I have to check now. With the medium, after these two, three laps I had a good pace.”
Bastianini made a late overtake on Marc Marquez to take second from at Turn 12 on the penultimate lap.
It didn’t cause the controversy his last lap move on Martin for the win at Misano last week did, and the Italian admits it wasn’t something that played on his mind when he passed Marquez.
“No, I didn’t think about this,” he said.
“It’s a bit easier to overtake in that corner compared to what happened in Misano.”
