Blue vitriol
THOSE FEARING THE 2022 World Championship was heading towards a predictable conclusion were made to revise their opinions in Assen. Francesco Bagnaia (Lenovo Ducati) may have controlled a lights-to-flag triumph for the best part of three-quarters distance but this was an outing high on drama. It was also one which few of the 104,244 fans in attendance saw coming.
Which sight was most difficult to foresee? Perhaps it was three Ducatis scrapping it out for the podium places around a track that had been like kryptonite for the Desmosedici machines in years gone by.
It could also have been that it was rookie Marco Bezzecchi (VR46 Ducati) who pushed Bagnaia (Lenovo Ducati) hardest in just his 11th premier-class race, earning Valentino Rossi’s team a debut MotoGP podium. Or even the fact Maverick Viñales scored a well-deserved third place – a first for Aprilia Racing – precisely one year on from the moment he decided to prematurely end a doomed relationship with Yamaha.
But the afternoon’s big takeaway was the clumsiness of Viñales’ ex-teammate Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha) on just the fifth lap that demonstrated he could well be fallible.
