Poker at the top, but the favorite is someone else
The Italian GP weekend couldn’t have started better for the Italian colors. The premises and cautions are the usual: it’s only Friday, it’s only Practice, etc. etc. All correct, all true. Meanwhile, however, at the top of the standings at Mugello there are four Italian riders and it is the first time this has happened in the so-called pre-qualifications. Di Giannantonio, Bagnaia, Bastianini and Morbidelli.
Read more Bastianini-Trackhouse, Pernat ‘blesses’ the agreement: “The rider we know will return”
The ACTUAL Italian job 🇮🇹 #ItalianGP | #MotoGP pic.twitter.com/IZrOs87jLB
— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) May 29, 2026
For Diggia, coming off the heroic triumph in Barcelona and author of the best time also in FP1, this position is becoming a pleasant habit; for Pecco it is nice to highlight the return to the top – hoping it is not temporary – on the track that for many seasons had become his private kingdom since from 2022 to 2024 the Chivasso rider had won all the races held here, whether GP or Sprint; the real surprise, however, are the other two in this top-4 tricolor, the Beast and the Morbido. One surprisingly fast on a KTM that today was difficult to push to the limit even for Pedro Acosta, the other desperately searching for a new highlight after the Sprint podium in Jerez and after a season start that has so far been extremely difficult.
Four names, four stories that paradoxically hide the biggest card that Italian motorcycling has to play this year: Marco Bezzecchi. The World Championship leader with his Aprilia now branded Monster was ‘only’ seventh in Practice, but with his usual frankness he said that “the position today doesn’t change a damn thing, the important thing was to be in the top ten“. Practical and concise.
Read more GP Italy 2026, FP2: final adjustments and then qualifying, starting at 10:10 – LIVE
And the impression is that Bez is not pushing, he is ‘saving himself’ for the race. His friend (and future teammate in Noale) Bagnaia noticed this, pointing out how Bezzecchi with the medium tire was comfortably able to stick to his tail when he was running with the softs. #72 has it, especially in race pace. The pole position tomorrow morning might also escape him, but he is the favorite for the win both in the Sprint and in the GP.
A dive into history
And it is precisely looking at Sunday that makes your mouth water. Despite superstition, we say it: Italy could dream of placing an all-tricolor top-3 that our motorcycling has missed since the Qatar GP 2023, where Di Giannantonio won ahead of Bagnaia and Luca Marini. Even an entirely white, red and green podium at Mugello has been missing since the historic 2005 race, when Rossi won ahead of Biaggi, Capirossi and Melandri. Back then it was even a poker. 21 years later it would be nice to replicate those feelings.
