Silverstone.- In the middle of last June, Paolo Ciabatti , Ducati’s sports director, marked the final days of August as the deadline to decide which rider will accompany Pecco Bagnaia in the official team of the Silverstone next season. Bologna house. The competition has been reduced to two runners, the Italian Enea Bastianini and the Spanish Jorge Martín.
Time passes and the calendar is what it is, therefore, in this restart of the championship after five weeks of vacation, the pulse is reduced to two weekends, the one that starts this Friday at Silverstone, and the one that will be held, within fifteen days, in Austria.
The sporting career of these two young and talented drivers largely depends on what happens in these two races, barely fifty laps. Only one will win the jackpot of going to the official team in 2023.
The other will ride with Pramac, along with Johann Zarco, who is not in the contest despite the fact that, paradoxically, he is the best classified of the three: third overall.
“I am facing the two most important races of my life,” Martin admitted this Thursday at Silverstone, giving the situation the value it deserves. “So I will try to go to the maximum,” he added.
Although in Borgo Panigale they have the decision quite cooked, it is true that in two races many things can happen and they can end up having a decisive influence.
“Ducati will decide in this period of time which team I will be in next year, and I think these two circuits have always gone very well for me,” says the Spaniard.
“Here at Silverstone I was fighting for pole position and for the podium last year, before that incident with Marc (Márquez, who threw him in the first few laps). And also Austria is a good track for me, so I hope to fight for winning both grand prix”, recalls the man from Madrid, who last year won the Styrian GP at the Red Bull Ring.
Martín knows the confidence that Ducati has in him, but he also knows that he has a tough rival in Enea, who has different material.
“I won’t go into details, because the bike is different, and the engine and the aerodynamics, too. We all know what I did with that bike last year. I think we can do well in these two races and race next year where I deserve it”, settled the boy from San Sebastián de los Reyes.
