Marc Marquez was able to overcome the poor weekend weather conditions at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli to emerge victorious in the Gran Premio Nolan del Made in Italy e dell’Emilia-Romagna, with team-mate Pol Espargaro taking second and local rider Enea Bastianini (Avintia Esponsorama) in third place.
Fabio Quartararo took a well-earned fourth place, battling from 15th on the grid, and in the process the 2021 MotoGP™ World Championship with two races still to go. In addition, he goes into the history books as the first ever Frenchman to win the premier class title.
While trying to fend off an in-form Marquez, and before unfortunately crashing out, Bagnaia set a new race lap record of 1’32.171, beating the record set just five weeks ago by Bastianini.
Leading up to race day, wet and cold weather was the dominant factor of all Free Practice sessions, giving the riders and teams no chance to work on dry race set-up. Fortunately, the recent race and subsequent test here five weeks ago meant that at least they had some data to help in this aspect.
The completely wet sessions gave all the riders the chance to find out what the Michelin Power Rain tyres could do. FP3 on Saturday brought optimum wet track conditions for the rain tyres and the hunt for the all-important places in the Qualifying 2 session saw the lap times improve considerably compared to Friday.
Contrary to the forecast, the FP4 and Qualifying sessions were almost dry, and this allowed the riders to finally run Michelin Power Slicks and to try to get a feel for the very cold track surface which was littered with damp patches. Bagnaia mastered the conditions on his Soft front and Soft rear slicks to take pole position, ahead of team-mate Jack Miller and Luca Marini (SKY VR46 Avintia) in a Ducati front row lock-out.
Lining up on the grid, the majority of riders chose the Medium front and Soft rear slicks – the most notable exceptions being the two Ducati Lenovo Team riders who went for the Hard front and Medium rear options, and Quartararo with the Medium rear.
Speaking at the end of the weekend, Piero Taramasso, Michelin Motorsport Two-Wheel Manager, said: “Despite the wet weather on Friday and Saturday, I was happy to see that we could have a completely dry race rather than the universally disliked mixture of wet and dry conditions. During the wet sessions I was happy with the performance of the Medium and Soft compound Michelin Power Rain tyres, and during the race the slicks yet again showed their consistent grip and versatility.
“These weather conditions, and with track temperatures lower than in September, meant that the teams went into the race with limited dry set-up information. Despite this, and the slightly ‘green’ track surface from the rain, our various slick options chosen by the different riders performed very well, with a new race lap record and consistent lap times.
“Finally, I’d like to say huge congratulations to Fabio for taking the 2021 title, but at the same time I was very sorry that Pecco was so unlucky today and not able to take the title race to the last two rounds.”
