We had hoped for it.
We had the secret hope that in the second weekend of Aragon things could take a different turn for Ducati. And instead nothing: the red of Borgo Panigale dilutes again in the gloomy darkness of a difficult race.

Once again forced to Q1, of the riders of desmosedici only save Joan Zarko. Flying over Rabat, accustomed to this point of view, on the starting line-up Danilo Petrucci, Francesco Bagnaia, Andrea Dovizioso and Jack Miller, mentioned going back from the last rows, they could read the writings on the back of the tuts of most of their opponents.

Again all uphill and with a trend in the tests that heralds shortness of breath. Takaaki Nakagami takes pole riding a Honda LCR,according to Morbidelli, third Rins,then Viñales and Zarco,who honors with the conquest of the second row the ascent from Q2.

To his left Quartararo. The race starts, the Liqui Moly de Teruel Grand Prixstarts, and Jack Miller is immediately buffered by Brad Binder– race over for both of us.
The difficult Sunday of the Ducati Octo Pramac Team will then continue with the withdrawal, after four laps, of Pecco Bagnaia, victim of a technical problem.

Before nakagami shoots well,right away followed by Morbidelli,but the Japanese leadership does not last a single lap: a slip and is out. The Italian of Yamaha Petronas is first:Franco Morbidelli will lead throughout the race, winning with authority as he had been able to do in the first race in Misano, re-enthusing the return gusts of Alex Rins on fast laps.

Seeing him drive is a spectacle and now he is the only one, with his teammate winning three, to have won more than one race this year, on the day that for Yamaha has the bitter sweet taste of celebrating it on the first step of the podium, but with Maverick Viñales and Fabio Quartararo among the comprimari, to fight in the group.

They will finish seventh and eighth respectively: too little to stem the solidity so far put on display by Suzuki. Joan Mir– the driver who has never won this year – stretches outin the standings and is now really scary. The possibility that he can win in the end becomes more and more concrete, costing brick above brick, point by point, with a constancy that no one, this year, has managed to achieve. Mir also grabs here the last step of the podium, behind his partner Rins, ideally also a signatory of the solidity certification of the Suzuki project. Joan Mir’s championship is proof that it would have been enough, even at Ducati, that hair of continuity more.

Can the young rider driver win at least one race? There are three left… we will see: this is also a reason that will add pepper to the final part of the championship, if ever there was a need.
Behind the three on the podium the KTM of Pol Espargaro and finally Joan Zarko, who with the Desmosedici of the Team Avintia took third place for a good half of the race, before suffering the return of Mir, Alex Marquez (who then stretched out, definitively erasing honda’s legal ambitions) and rider the KTM Factory Racing.

And now that what will happen after Aragon? Are seventy-five points make up the big booty for those who will be able to germicant it, and mathematics – we repeat: three races from the end – theoretically keeps the French rider of team Ducati Avintia, who occupies the fourteenth position in the general classification! rider Do we therefore feel able to abandon the hopes that Andrea Dovizioso,who after the second race at the Motorland in Teruel is fifth at 28 points from Mir, will win?

“We knew this was going to be a tough race and unfortunately my feelings on the bike were not good. We didn’t have the speed to be able to reassemble and on the end of the race the soft rubber had a major drop, which prevented me from driving as I would have liked. – passed in the final by Petrucci, Andrea will eventually be thirteenth – I struggled a lot and, especially in the last laps, I also began to suffer from problems with forearms.
Now let’s turn the page and focus on the last three races that remain“.

Better than him Danilo, tenth at theend , in the elimination race where those who came to cross the finish line went to points: “It was an uphill race, considering we were going a long way back. Fortunately this morning we were able to find a good setup that partly solved our problems.
I tried to manage the tires well in the first laps and on the end of the race I managed to make some nice overtaking. Unfortunately we still suffer from a certain lack of speed in the straight, but in general my feeling with the bike has improved. Today our goal was to finish in the top ten and we succeeded, getting important points for the ranking“.

Morale is low, problems have been of various kinds – political and technical – but the Desmosedici GP20 has proven to be a winner, in a season where everything is true and everything is false, where you laugh and immediately after you cry, where you can despair and then rejoice, where you can taste the dust of the escape route and then rinse your mouth toasting on the podium of the race after and where, above all, it is worth betting on believing again. Exciting championship, we will remember it for a long time!