Last Saturday, after crashing out on the third lap of the sprint race at Sepang while fighting his rival for the win and the championship crown, Francesco Bagnaia was both hurt and bewildered. The reigning world champion was unable to find a rational explanation for the five zeroes he has accumulated so far in the sprint races which, as he himself pointed out, have been decisive in leaving Jorge Martin a step away from the title.
The Pramac rider will be celebrating in 10 days' time if he is able to win the sprint, in which he has built a large part of his championship chances, at the Barcelona season finale that replaces the cancelled Valencia GP.
"I just need to improve my performance on Saturdays. I have to understand why I have failed so much, work on it. On Sundays, I was at a high level, but it was the sprint that made the difference," lamented factory Ducati rider Bagnaia.
The results achieved by the two riders are frightening, and put them on a level unattainable for the rest. Paradoxically, Bagnaia is very close to losing a world championship which, numerically speaking, is his best season since he has been competing in MotoGP.
His performance in the Sunday races has been phenomenal, with 10 victories and 15 podiums out of a possible 19. In the longer races, Bagnaia has scored 345 of his 461 total points. Subtraction indicates that the Turin native has scored 116 points on Saturdays, 48 fewer than Martin's tally of 164.
In the amount of sprint wins, they are more or less on a par (seven to Martin's six), but the contrast between them is in the number of retirements. Bagnaia has five to his opponent's two.
Statistics need to be interpreted and context needs to be added. In the era before the weekend format change introduced in 2023, only counting Sunday results, Bagnaia would lead the overall standings with a 24-point cushion and would be just one point away from becoming a three-time world champion in the premium class.
But that model of championship is now a thing of the past, and the current situation highlights one of Martin's strengths.
"We already knew that one of Jorge's strengths was his explosiveness, and now he has found a way to maximise that," Pramac team manager Gino Borsoi tells Autosport. "To understand his form and the records he has set, I would point to that explosiveness and the mentality he has adopted this year.
It would be unfair to conclude that the reigning champion has failed if we consider that nobody has won more than him in a year in which he has broken all the individual records of any Ducati rider
"Now he goes out to race knowing that he is not obliged to always win, but that the important thing is to perform well, bring the bike back, and then let the standings be the judge."
Apart from the points on offer, the main difference between Saturday and Sunday races is that the bikes are not as fine-tuned in the former as they are in the latter. In this sense, it is no coincidence that Bagnaia, one of the most methodical riders on the grid, tends to make a big jump in performance between Saturday and Sunday.
Combined with his enormous talent and his temperance, the two-time champion makes the most of the working method established at Ducati since the arrival of Gigi Dall'Igna in 2014. Based on the collection and analysis of the information provided by the eight Desmosedici at the Bolognese constructor, this protocol allows the performance of the bikes to be optimised much more quickly and efficiently throughout the weekend.
The most useful test bench for drawing conclusions is the sprint race. Until then, the technicians have 'only' three practice sessions to analyse and look for the best set-up.
"Jorge adapts very well and very quickly to the bike from the moment he gets on the bike on Friday morning," an authoritative voice from Ducati tells Autosport. "On the other hand, with Pecco we often see that he grows as the practices go by.
"It's usually on Sundays that he makes the difference, because the people around him have been able to collate all the information available. With all those resources, he usually arrives at the most decisive moment with the bike completely to his liking."
"From the outside, without knowing all the details, you get the feeling that Pecco arrives a little bit more precise at the sprint, but then, with all the information from the rest of the Ducati team, about tyre consumption, electronic set-up and so on, he makes that leap that is reflected on Sundays," adds a track engineer from a rival team which works with one of the world champions on the grid.
In Malaysia, this feeling was once again evident, not so much because of Saturday's slip-up, but because of the victory the following day. Bagnaia's 10th win has sublimated Ducati's method, despite the fact that it is practically impossible to retain the title in Barcelona.
Should that happen, it would be unfair to conclude that the reigning champion has failed if we consider that nobody has won more than him in a year in which he has broken all the individual records of any Ducati rider. In any case, it will be that Martin's reading has been more accurate.
