The six riders Bagnaia must beat to claim his second championship

Reigning champion Francesco Bagnaia starts 2023 as the man to beat, and he has the number to prove it.

For the first time in more than a decade, the number 1 will appear on a MotoGP bike, with Bagnaia taking the opportunity to swap out his personal numbers 63 for the championship digit.

It’ll be a constant visual reminder that the slender, softly spoken Italian is the benchmark, the man the rest have to chase if they want a shot at title glory.

And early evidence suggests the magic number will have no shortage of suitors in 2023.

Not only is Bagnaia one of four champions on the grid, but there’s a massive cast of riders eager to stake a claim for their first piece of silverware.

Perhaps alarmingly for the reigning champion, most of the calls for glory are coming from inside his own house.

The evidence of pre-season testing strongly suggests that Ducati has the bike to beat this year. No fewer than eight riders are on a Desmosedici, and whether it’s the current or 2022 specification, they’re all victory contenders.

Aprilia has continues building momentum after last year’s breakout season that came painfully close to delivering Aleix Espargaró what would’ve been a fairytale title.

Yamaha is coming off the back of an optimistic pre-season — at least by the time they got to the final day of it — while at Honda Marc Márquez is fully fit once more.

Bagnaia might have the number 1 on his bike, but he’ll have to prove he’s top of the class all over again in the next 21 rounds.

The Ducati contenders

Francesco Bagnaia

He’s the favourite for a reason. Though last year’s championship went down to the final race, Bagnaia’s campaign was irresistible once it clicked into gear halfway through the year. In the final 10 races he turned a 91-point deficit into a 17-point title victory over Fabio Quartararo — better form is hard to come by.

And whereas last year the pressure of the championship battle was clearly eating into him, this year the weight of expectation has been lifted. This isn’t Bagnaia the title hopeful; this is Bagnaia the defending champion.

Other riders have remarked that 2023-spec Pecco is a new proposition.

“I think this year he seems more of a changed man, a confident man, and he’s riding pretty impressive,” former teammate Jack Miller said, per Autosport. “He’s looking stronger this year than last year.”

He’s also on what looks like the bike of the field and inside a team that swept all three titles last season and is enjoying a purple patch in the cycle of the sport.

As a combination, it’s extremely difficult to pass.

Enea Bastianini

All that said, Enea Bastianini’s arrival on the sister bike represent a clear disruptive element to Bagnaia’s well-established position in the team.

Bastianini replaces Jack Miller, with whom Bagnaia enjoyed an excellent working and personal relationship. Pecco and Enea’s links in MotoGP mostly comprise a handful of no-holds-barred duels.

Several of their battles ended with Bagnaia in the gravel, and there was no rider who looked as capable of getting under Pecco’s skin as his then Gresini compatriot.

That rivalry now comes fully in house, and there’s no suggestion the newcomer will be making way for the team leader.

Not only is he eager to win the title himself — he collected the most wins of any rider bar Bagnaia last season — but he’s also not from the Valentino Rossi school of racing, unlike the other Italians in the Ducati set-up. He’s racing for the team, sure, but he’s also out there for himself.

Now with access to the same machinery as Bagnaia, Bastianini could prove to be the reigning champion’s biggest threat.

Jorge Martin

They say titles aren’t won on satellite machinery, the combination of the super-fast Jorge Martin on a 2023-spec Desmosedici in the stable set-up of Pramac feels like the best odds of proving that adage to be false.

Don’t forget, this is the same Martin who was the presumptive air to Miller’s factory Ducati seat until Bastianini’s sensational start to 2022. During that time he was not only battling with the difficult early 2022 bike — which had a rougher engine spec — but he was also afflicted with nerve damage in his arm that eventually required surgery.

That means he’s also the same Martin who was smarting from being overlooked for the promotion to Bologna.

It’s an intoxicating a motivating fuel for the Spaniard in 2023, who fully fit and on the best bike must be considered a chance to break the rules and emerge as a satellite title threat.

The deposed champion

Fabio Quartararo

The 2021 champion came within a race of winning the 2022 title. On its own that sounds unremarkable, but you must consider the machinery he had at his disposal.

Fabio Quartararo scored 248 points. His teammate, Franco Morbidelli, managed just 42 points on identical machinery. The RNF riders accumulated just 37 between them on satellite bikes.

That is, Fabio outscored the three other bikes by 314 per cent. It was quite the campaign.

Yamaha’s pre-season started with great optimism but the team struggled in the opening days to find a workable set-up. It took until the final day of track running, when the bike’s configuration was reset to something close to 2022 specification, that its potential was unlocked.

The optimism has returned, and Quartararo is convinced he has the top speed and cornering performance to make a fight of this championship.

The Frenchman is one of the field’s most consistent performers, and he’s the undisputed number on in the team. It’s a proven combination that will surely play a major role in the championship equation.

The dark horses

Aleix Espargaró and Maverick Viñales

Aprilia turned up in 2022 with what looked like a championship-contending bike for much of the year, but the Italian team just lacked the final percentage points to make it to the finish within touching distance of Ducati and to keep Aleix Espargaró in the fight.

But the team is better for having competed at the pointy end — for much of the season with Yamaha and Quartararo — last season, and with this year’s bike looking like a comfortable step forward, the overall package will be more competitive, more difficult to ignore.

The interesting question is: if Aprilia has the pace, who will lead the title charge?

Espargaró is described as the team captain, having given years of his life to a project that is finally bearing fruit. He’s tough operator and made great strides in consistency last year, but it was rare that he really dazzled with blistering pace. He won only one race for the year.

Maverick Viñales, meanwhile, has a higher ceiling but rarely got the best from his bike last year. Often he felt like he was close to cracking the code only to find some other problem with his feeling on the bike prevented him from developing some momentum. He stepped onto the podium only three times.

Espargaró and Viñales might have been the perfect combination had they been a single rider. Separate and they have weaknesses they need to work on before they can be considered contenders who can go the distance.

But they shouldn’t be discounted, and Espargaró in particular should be considered a dark horse. His early campaign was undoubtedly impressive last year, and if he can build on that, he can be counted to get among the fight.

The wildcard

Marc Márquez

You’ll struggle to find anyone with much good to say about Honda heading into the season, with the once great Japanese marque likely battling KTM at the back of the pack.

But this is Marc Márquez we’re talking about.

For the first time since 2020 the Spaniard can finally say he’s fully fit. That should strike fear into those riders who remember virtually any of his career before breaking his arm.

Of course Márquez magic can only get a bike so far up the grid. A rider can add transcend their machinery, but only to a point.

And the Honda bike really is in dire straits, so much so that Speedweek has reported the team has commissioned Kalex to build a new RC213V chassis rather than do so itself — a shocking development for the former MotoGP powerhouse. The third-party frame will reportedly be ready to test in late April.

It’s therefore seriously unlikely for the team and therefore Márquez will be in a position to fight for the title.

But you just know the six-time MotoGP champion will be getting speed out of the bike that on paper just shouldn’t be there — think about how he came within corners of winning last year’s Australian Grand Prix on a barely redeemable bike.

So if the 2023 Kalex-Honda machine can be improved during the season, it’d be no surprise to see Márquez scoring the kind of results that have a major influence on the title picture. He may not be able to win the thing, but some wins, poles and podiums might seem him able to decide who gets their hands on the championship trophy.