Who will win the number-one plate in 2025: Ducati, Aprilia or KTM?

“It was very frustrating to see one Ducati come past and go away and then another,” said Espargaró, who had Bastianini, Marc Márquez and Fabio Di Giannantonio come past him in the second half of the race as he ran out of rear grip. “I tried my best with the electronics – up and down with the engine brake and traction control – but there was nothing I could do against them.”

Espargaró qualified on pole – because the RS-GP works so well through Silverstone’s sweeping curves – and finished third in the sprint behind Bastianini and Martin, which suggested he had a chance in the main race. But the GP24 is even stronger in GP mode than in sprint mode. Why is that?

“With a softer rear tyre they have a limit, because the rear pushes the front,” explained Espargaró. “That’s why we are close in qualifying and the sprint, but with harder rear tyres [used in the twice-as-long main race] it’s so difficult to fight with them.”

Those who doubt Bastianini’s title potential haven’t been keeping an eye on his recent results. Sunday’s victory was his third podium in the last four races and last time out in Germany he was fourth, less than a second off the podium.

The 26-year-old Italian has had a mostly difficult time since Ducati chose him over Martin for the factory team for 2023. He missed nearly half of last year’s races through injury and never really got on with the GP23. This year his results have been conditioned by mostly poor qualifying performances — his Silverstone front row was the first time he had started from the front row since the Portuguese GP in March! And however good his late-race pace might be (no one overtakes more riders!), it won’t be enough, unless he consistently qualifies at the front and has a strong first few laps.

Maybe, just maybe, Bastianini has turned a corner.

“During the summer break I thought a lot about how to do something more,” he said. “Many times I’ve missed my time attack, but this weekend my approach to the time attack was good.

“This time I made my best qualifying lap with my first tyre. Every other time I didn’t have the opportunity to do this and many times with my second tyre there were yellow flags or too much traffic.”

Perhaps Bastianini should continue betting on his first qualifying run.

Some people in the MotoGP paddock call Bastianini the Tyre Whisperer, because he’s so good at listening to his rear tyre and looking after it.

“I’m now softer with my movements on the bike, so I am more relaxed on the bike and I can be fast all the way through the race,” he told me towards the end of his rookie MotoGP season in 2021.

But his ability to eke out race-long grip from his rear tyre isn’t only about how he plays with rear grip. He has a special feeling with the front tyre, which allows him to force the front tyre to turn the bike, thus saving the rear for later in the race when he needs it most. Hence his devastating late pace.

Bagnaia uses a similar technique – using the front for turning and for huge corner speed – but it didn’t work at Silverstone, because he didn’t have the front tyre he needed. The hard option was too hard for the cool conditions – he thought he might crash if he tried to race with it – and the medium wasn’t hard enough. And he had crashed out of the sprint, which made him cautious on Sunday, especially because he didn’t have the front grip he needed.

“The medium front was the best solution but it wasn’t the fastest tyre,” said Bagnaia. “I struggled a lot in braking. Normally I turn the bike with the front but this time I couldn’t do that, because I had a lot of locking and movement from the tyre.”

At which corners did he struggle most with the front?

“Many times at one, three, six, nine, 15 and 16 I was locking and losing the front… It was difficult to stop the bike, so I was always running wide, so I had to use the gas to turn the bike, so I had too much spin and finished my rear tyre.”

That’s why Bagnaia dropped like a stone in the final stages and was nearly caught by Márquez, who said he would’ve had a go at the world champ if he wasn’t also in cautious mode, because he too had crashed out of the sprint.

“Maybe a podium would’ve been possible… or another crash,” grinned the six-time MotoGP champion.

The only rider to use the hard front was Espargaró, who began having doubts on the grid as a light rain fell and the track temperature dropped.

“On the grid I was very afraid,” said the 35-year-old after his 329th GP.

In fact the hard front worked well for Espargaró, but it wasn’t an easy choice. Martin’s front worked fine when he was chasing Bagnaia for the first half of the race, the heat from the leader’s GP24 keeping the tyre at a good temperature. But soon after he took the lead on lap 12 of 20 the tyre cooled down a bit, making front grip sketchy.

“Behind Pecco I felt good, but when I was in front I struggled a bit to stop the bike,” said Martin who regained the title lead he had lost to Bagnaia when he crashed out of last month’s German GP. “Then when I saw Enea was getting close I pushed a lot to keep him behind and then I made that mistake,”

The same happened to Márquez in the sprint – he was fine chasing the lead back but when he found himself alone his front tyre cooled and he lost the front braking for Vale.

Bastianini – whose flowing technique really suits fast and flowing Silverstone – had been closing on Martin since he passed Bagnaia with seven laps to go, taking tenths out of the leader each lap and using the rear grip he had saved to make some glorious sideways exits from Woodcote.

Eventually the pressure told on Martin, who ran super-wide into Turn 3 on the penultimate lap, gifting the lead to his former Moto2 and Moto3 rival.

Martin knew he was done and was 1.9 seconds down at the chequered flag. Bagnaia had also waved the white flag, a further four seconds back.

Bastianini’s sixth MotoGP victory (four with Gresini Ducati in 2022 and one last year) was extra special because it came at the race celebrating MotoGP’s first 75 seasons. All 11 MotoGP teams ran special retro liveries, and although the factory Ducati team’s effort (inspired by its 2003 Desmosedici) was somewhat lame, Bastianini’s retro helmet design was superb.

He wore a Mike Hailwood replica, which was particularly fitting because Britain’s most successful grand prix rider of all time took the first of his 76 GP victories aboard a factory Ducati desmo 125 at the 1959 Ulster GP. Hailwood was only 19 at the time and only got the bike because his wealthy father (a motorcycle dealer) agreed to import Ducatis to Britain.

The next MotoGP weekend at Red Bull Ring (16-18 August) will of course be crucial for Bastianini. Bagnaia’s technique is perfectly suited to the stop-go circuit and Martin scored his first MotoGP victory there, whereas Bastianini has never finished better than tenth. However, Bastianini started from pole in 2022 and was with the leading group until he had to withdraw with brake problems.

If Bastianini runs up front in Austria then a three-way championship battle is game-on.