Bastianini unfazed by championship pressure, 'top five is my target'
The Gresini Ducati rider produced a brilliant ride to clinch his first ever MotoGP win nearly two weeks ago, which led to immediate praise and expectation from some of his rivals.
Marc Marquez was one of those to claim Bastianini is a title contender, however, the Italian is choosing to remain unfazed by such expectations, particularly as the former Moto2 world champion is well aware of the difficulty that comes with staying at the front.
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When asked if a championship challenge is ‘on’ following his maiden win, Bastianini added: "This I don’t know! To win the title it’s difficult. I won the title in 2020 with the Moto2 and I’m here to win the title in MotoGP.
"But for the moment I don’t have a lot of experience, even though in Qatar I managed the race in the correct way and now in Mandalika - new track for everybody and we have only done a test here - we will see in the championship.
"My target remains the top five and this is a good target to have for 2022."
While testing results often throw up a completely different order to that of a race at the same circuit, Bastianini, who was extremely fast during the Mandalika test in both race and qualifying trim could well lead Ducati’s challenge for the podium places once again.
Bastianini has last season’s GP21 engine in his Ducati which has so far shown itself to be a more complete package compared to the hybrid 21-22 configuration that Francesco Bagnaia and Jack Miller have at present. The same goes for Jorge Martin who has the completely new GP22 engine aboard his Pramac Ducati.
On the subject of repeating his Qatar performance, Bastianini said: "I’m very motivated, but also I have to stay very concentrated because the MotoGP class is really difficult.
"The gaps between more riders are so close. In this track between 0.2s we are 15 riders and it’s very competitive. But I’m motivated!"
