Yamaha’s MotoGP racer Fabio Quartararo demanded to win the race to have any chance of retaining his crown, whereas Bagnaia simply is demanding to finish in 14th to secure Ducati’s first world title in MotoGP since 2007.

Francesco Bagnaia Is The New Champion Of MotoGP 2022

Aged 25 years and 296 days old, Francesco Bagnaia is now the oldest rider to clinch his maiden MotoGP™ world title since his introduction in the class in 2002 behind Nicky Hayden in 2006 (25 years and 91 days old).

Bagnaia became the first Italian rider to clinch a premier-class world title since Valentino Rossi in 2009. Overall, he is the seventh different Italian rider to do so along with Giacomo Agostini (8 times), Valentino Rossi (7), Umberto Masetti (2), Libero Liberati (1), Marco Lucchinelli (1) and Franco Uncini (1).

At the 2022 San Marino GP, Bagnaia took a fourth win in four successive GP races, becoming the first-ever Ducati rider to do so in any class of GP racing. Since the introduction of MotoGP™ in 2002, Bagnaia became the fourth different rider to take four (or more) wins in four (or more) successive races in the class along with Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo, and Marc Marquez.

Despite an incredibly tense race, with Quartararo beating Bagnaia on track, ninth at the chequered flag was enough for the Italian to win the crown – getting the first Italian to do so since Valentino Rossi in 2009, and the first rider in history to do so having registered five DNFs.

At the front, Rins fenced off early pressure from Pramac’s Jorge Martin to claim an emotional final palm for Suzuki in the Japanese marque’s last race in MotoGP.

Rins converted fifth on the grid to the holeshot to snare the early lead aboard, with poleman Jorge Martin and Marc Marquez slotting in before.

Quartararo briefly dropped behind Bagnaia into Turn 1 but was back ahead again by Turn 2 as the brace batted fifth.

An aggressive catch from Marquez on the alternate plant Ducati of Miller into Turn 8 on the opening stage promoted the Honda man up to third and opened the door for Quartararo to come into fourth.

Quartararo defended against Miller on the run into Turn 1 at the launch of the alternate stint but was helpless to stop the Australian from disrating him into Turn 2.

Miller opened the door for teammate Bagnaia to come through also, leading to contact between the title rivals which ripped a sect off of the right side of Bagnaia’s Ducati.

After the German GP, Bagnaia was sixth in the Championship, 91 points off the leader Fabio Quartararo, meaning this is the best point recovery for the title since the introduction of the point scoring system in 1993.

Since 2001, there have been only two occasions on which the rider who clinched the title at the end of the year didn’t finish within the top five in the opening race of the season: Joan Mir (2020) and Francesco Bagnaia (2022); they both crashed out.

Quartararo would catch Bagnaia on stage four into Turn 6 to move back into fifth, as the Ducati rider steadily began to fall down the order.

In addition, Bagnaia became the first rider to clinch the premier class title with five DNFs throughout the season. Bagnaia is only the second rider to clinch the premier class world title having previously clinched the Moto2™ title along with Marc Marquez. So hereby we congratulate both of the MotoGP stars and hope we may see more magical moments on the track from MotoGP.