Avintia Racing boss Ruben Xaus says he will enjoy Enea Bastianini’s great run to the podium in San Marino MotoGP compared to Johann Zarco’s similar performance in 2020, partly due to the Frenchman’s high profile attitude towards the team is.
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Bastianini crystallized out at Misano with a remarkable ride where he drove his 2019 Ducati GP19 from the 12th to numerous respected rivals.
Only the second podium Avintia Racing has achieved at this level comes as the Spanish team prepares to leave MotoGP after ten seasons, with its entries being carried over to VR46 Racing for the 2022 season.
For team manager Xaus – himself a former MotoGP rider and WorldSBK runner-up – Bastianini’s performance leaves a more indelible mark than that of his first podium that Zarco achieved at the Czech MotoGP in Brno.
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On that occasion, Zarco stunned the paddock by qualifying in pole position before overcoming a long lap penalty and finishing in third place.
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However, as Xaus points out, Bastianini managed his feat on the almost outdated Ducati GP19 – a two-year-old motorcycle dictated by a freeze on the regulations for 2021 – on a team with by far the lowest budget, while Zarco had more experience and more Input from the Ducati factory as part of a deal to be placed with Avintia.
“This podium tastes much better than last year’s,” Xaus told DAZN. “We built it: ninth on the first lap, passed Marc Marquez, Aleix Espargaró, Joan Mir, Álex Rins, Jack Miller … In other words, a great race. Zarco had previously contested podiums, we’re talking about a rookie and this is our last season in MotoGP. We reached a podium with a very limited budget. “
In fact, Xaus still has mixed feelings about Zarco’s time at Avintia. The Frenchman notoriously dismissed Avintia’s modest resources at the end of the 2019 season when asked if he would consider joining the Spanish team and said he would compete in Moto2 earlier.
However, Ducati’s intervention would result in Zarco agreeing to join Avintia in exchange for some factory resources, even if the man himself went to great lengths to point out that he had a Ducati contract and not an Avintia Racing contract.
Although Avintia celebrated his most successful season with Zarco, it was clear to Xaus that he did not want to be there.
“Zarco didn’t want to ride for us, but he now had a much better bike than Bastianini. We got pole in Brno and it was great, but a lot had happened. Not in this race.
“After our podium with Johann Zarco, everyone said, ‘Ah, but it’s Johann, it’s the bike…’ We’re doing it again with the same team without having a better bike. That means that the package is incredible, the incredible performance of the driver ”.