Still far from his full potential, Marc Marquez has this year regained competitive pace after two complicated seasons in 2020 and 2021. At Phillip Island he had his best result, a second place, less than two tenths of a second behind the winner, Alex Rins.
2022 champion Francesco 'Pecco' Bagnaia has not ignored the improvements shown by Marc Márquez over the past year. The Spaniard has been on the podium once but has been in the top five four other times, in a third of the 12 races he has started in 2022.
'Marc is a rider who is willing to take risks at any opportunity to win a race. He has no problem crashing in order to get what he wants; he is a racing animal,' said Bagnaia in an interview with La Stampa, as quoted by tuttomotoriweb.it, making it clear that the championship is made up of very talented (Italian) riders:
- The current moment in MotoGP is full of talent, much of it Italian. There are [Enea] Bastianini, [Franco] Morbidelli, [Marco] Bezzecchi, [Luca] Marini, and this phase reminds me of when there were [Loris] Capirossi, [Max] Biaggi, [Marco] Melandri and even Valentino Rossi.