Bagnaia Seals Historic Three-Peat at Mugello Amid Fierce Ducati Dominance: 2024 Italian MotoGP Roundup

Results from the 2024 Italian MotoGP at Mugello, the seventh round out of 21 in the world championship series.

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Francesco Bagnaia achieves a third consecutive victory in the Italian MotoGP, securing the 93rd Grand Prix win for Ducati.

In a thrilling last-minute push, Enea Bastianini, also known as 'The Beast,' managed to overtake Marc Marquez, securing third place, before dramatically claiming the second position from the championship frontrunner, Jorge Martin, right at the final turn.

If Marc Marquez had won, it would have continued the remarkable trend of Ducati's victories aligning with their racers' numbers—Casey Stoner achieving the 27th win with bike #27, Bagnaia securing the 63rd win with #63, Marco Bezzecchi grabbing the 72nd win with #72, and Jorge Martin capturing the 89th win with #89.

However, the Gresini racer found himself excluded from the grand prix podium for the first occasion since he fell from the front position at COTA.

Bagnaia was penalized with a three-spot drop on the starting grid due to impeding Alex Marquez on Friday.

This resulted in him falling to fifth position on the starting grid, elevating Maverick Vinales to second place, right behind the pole position holder Martin, and moving Marc Marquez up to the front row.

However, Bagnaia quickly negated his penalty by surging from fifth to first by the second turn and maintained the lead thereafter.

Throughout the majority of the 23-lap race, the top contenders – Bagnaia, Martin, Bastianini, Marc Marquez, Pedro Acosta, Franco Morbidelli, and Maverick Vinales – maintained their positions without change, until Marc Marquez made a late move to overtake Bastianini, securing third place.

The Gresini Ducati competitor, who finished second to Bagnaia in the Sprint, was seen emitting clouds of tire smoke from the last turn, likely due to his ride-height mechanism.

It remains uncertain if Marquez's lack of top speed was due to that factor or just because he was riding the outdated GP23. Nonetheless, the #93 rider couldn't challenge Martin for the second position and was instead on the defensive against Bastianini's comeback.

On the second-to-last lap, The Beast forcefully pushed Marquez aside to reclaim the last spot on the podium, then quickly caught up to and overtook Martin, the racer believed to be the favorite to replace him in his official team position for the 2025 season.

In his debut season, Pedro Acosta from KTM stood out as the singular rider not on a Ducati among the top seven finishers, while Fabio di Giannantonio's performance pushed Vinales down to the eighth spot. Contrary to the rest, Vinales was the sole competitor to not select the combination of a medium front and soft rear tire, instead choosing a medium rear tire.

Updated regulations for tyre pressure in 2024 stipulate that competitors are required to maintain a minimum front tyre pressure of 1.8 bar, a decrease from the previous 1.88 bar, for at least 60% of a Grand Prix race distance, up from the former requirement of 50%, or for 30% of a Sprint event.

If competitors do not reach the required standard in a Grand Prix, they will incur a time penalty of 16 seconds after the race. For a Sprint or shorter race, the penalty is reduced to 8 seconds.

During last year's Mugello sprint race, Brad Binder set an all-time MotoGP top speed record at 227.5mph (366.1km/h), a feat that KTM wild-card Pol Espargaro equaled on Friday.

A formal testing session is scheduled to take place at Mugello on Monday, following the race.

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