Enea Bastianini’s thrilling 15th MotoGP triumph makes Gresini the first satellite team to win races for several manufacturers.
It was simple to overlook that Gresini remained the most successful Independent team of the MotoGP era during the 15-year wait for Enea Bastianini to win the Italian team’s 15th premier-class victory in Qatar on Sunday.
Between 2003 and 2006, Gresini won 14 races on Honda machinery, with eight triumphs for Sete Gibernau, five for Marco Melandri, and one for Toni Elias. Gibernau (twice) and Melandri were also runner-up to Valentino Rossi for the championship.
All satellite team wins came to a halt with the switch to 800cc motorcycles in 2007, a drought that continued until Jack Miller’s rainy Assen victory in 2016.
Gresini had moved from satellite Hondas to Factory Aprilias by that point, a collaboration that lasted until the end of the previous season.
Unfortunately, late team head Fausto Gresini rarely got to see the team’s solitary RS-GP podium, which Aleix Espargaro took at Silverstone in 2021.
But even that triumph paled in comparison to the fairy-tale win in Qatar, when Bastianini – back to the squad for which he competed in Moto3 – won the race debut of the completely new Gresini Ducati project.
This was also the first time in MotoGP history that an independent team had won races with several manufacturers (it depends on if you count Makoto Tamada as a Pons or Pramac rider – or even JiR – while at Camel Honda in 2004).
It was the first win for a racer on a year-old Desmosedici, following Pramac’s Jorge Martin last season.
With his victory, Bastianini joins only Gibernau (2004), Cal Crutchlow (2018), Fabio Quartararo (2020), and Johann Zarco (2021) as satellite riders who have led the MotoGP World Championship rankings.
Gresini has nearly double the number of satellite MotoGP triumphs as the next closest Pons team, which won eight races between 2002 and 2005 while Alex Barros, Max Biaggi, and Tamada used its grid positions.
With SRT’s demise at the end of last year, the closest Independent team to Gresini that is currently active in the premier-class is LCR, which won three races with Cal Crutchlow between 2016 and 2018:
| SATELLITE MOTOGP RACE WINS (SINCE 2002) | |||
| TEAM | BIKE(S) | WINS | |
| 1 | Gresini | Honda/Ducati | 15 |
| 2 | Pons* | Honda | 8 |
| 3 | SRT | Yamaha | 6 |
| 4 | LCR | Honda | 3 |
| 5 | Tech3 | KTM | 2 |
| =6 | Pramac | Ducati | 1 |
| =6 | Marc VDS | Honda | 1 |
The uniforms of MOTOGP racing riders are currently available at the following websites for a reasonable price:
Ducati, Bastianini, Espargaro, MOTO, Moto racing, Motocross, MOTOGP
