‘Employer of the year’ Ducati Lenovo Team MotoGP are looking likely to replace out-of-form Enea Bastianini with the more-in-form Jorge Martin for next season.
Throughout last year both Martin and Bastianini were in contention for the coveted Ducati factory ride. Eventually the team chose the Italian rider after concluding that they couldn’t select Jorge as his ‘Martinator’ slogan was so cringeworthy that it even rivalled Sete Gibernau’s short lived ‘ManCuddler’ slogan.
But despite winning favour It’s understood that Bastianini was only given a ‘1+1’ year contract with the Bolognese based team (which is essentially exactly the same as having a ‘1+0’ contract) and the Italian pipe-benders are keen to replace him after a disappointing start to the season.
“He’s had plenty of time to shine” explained a security guard for the team who for some reason felt he was the spokesman for Ducati “but all he’s done is skive off work. Being a factory rider for Ducati means hard work, regular pasta breaks and outstanding results – and if all that fails then at least shout a lot and wave your arms around like an annoying idiot”.
“And sadly Bastianini’s just not delivered” he concluded.
Some trouble causers in the media have, however, noted that Enea’s poor results 100% stem from the fact he’s been injured after being knocked off in the opening weekend by Luca ‘no penalties for me mate’ Marini. The same media outlets have also noted that it would be incredibly unfair to ditch their newest rider without even giving him a chance to race.
Could Marquez still hospitalise Martin?
Bastianini’s big and most realistic hope is that the antichrist Marc Marquez is able to do a ‘Marc Marquez’ on Jorge Martin causing the Primark Ducati rider to spend the next few months in a cast and being fed puree through a tube. This could then allow Enea to step up and, given Ducati’s seemingly total lack of morals, sack off Martin and retain the Italian.
Fortunately for the injured Italian Marquez and Martin have a track record of hatred on the track. This all started back in 2021 when Jorge put a strong move on his rival on the opening lap of the British GP only for Marc to immediately fight back with an ‘even stronger’ move…which resulted in both riders crashing out and Jorge suffering several injuries.
This season, for the few races that Marquez has not been off skiving, Martin has being able to put some more strong moves on his countryman. Sadly for Marc each time this has happened he was not able to instantly respond by hospitalising Jorge – but will have all most certainly stored this data for a future race.