Duel Bagnaia vs Quartararo on display at the Malaysian GP

This weekend the Malaysian GP is being held on the Sepang circuit and all eyes will be on the duel between Francesco Bagnaia and fabio quartararo for the title. This is the poster child for this penultimate stop of the season, even if Aleix Espargaro and Enea Bastianini are also in the running and could play spoilsport.

For Bagnaia, the “simplest” scenario would be to win and hope that Quartararo does not appear on the podium. Regardless of the results of Espargaro and Bastianini, the official Ducati rider would take the crown: “For the moment, I'm rather calm,” he begins. I know our potential can be high. If we continue to work like we did in the second half of the season, we can do a good job. The main question concerns the weather. It could rain Saturday and Sunday. We'll see, because it's always difficult to predict the weather here. But I think that if we work well, we have great possibilities. Since 2009, no Italian has won the title in MotoGP and since 2007, no Ducati rider has achieved this. It could be my first MotoGP title… of course, the pressure is there, I can feel it coming. I'm happy, but we have to finish the job and I'm mainly focused on that. »

“It’s not over, we can do it” – Fabio Quartararo (Malaysian GP, ​​Thursday)

After leading the way in the championship since the Portuguese GP last April, Quartararo now no longer plays the role of “prey”, but of hunter. To push back the deadline in Valencia, the Frenchman must stay as close as possible to Bagnaia in the rankings. Finishing in front would be even better, of course, but on a circuit favorable to Ducatis, it won't be easy: “I haven't really benefited from these last races,” he said. I'm in a position where I don't really need to think about anything. I'm just going to try to push it to the limit. It's a different mentality and I will, of course, approach this GP in a different mood. I have the feeling that I have nothing more to lose. I will try to make changes to the bike. Until now, when we had a good feeling on a circuit, we didn't touch the bike. Maybe it's a good time to make some progress in certain areas even if we have a good feeling. I think this is a different situation from the previous ones. It's not over, we can do this. Of course, the second part of the season was horrible, but we can turn things around to perform well in the last two races. »

See you on Sunday at 15 p.m. to perhaps find out the outcome of this Franco-Italian duel on Malaysian soil.