Bastianini has often been one of the fastest riders in race conditio🍒ns since making a full return from injury, however, poor starting positions hav♌e limited him.

And that was the case again in the sprint at Valencia, as he was first caught up behind Jack Miller befor🍌e running into mechanical 🎐issues for the opening lap.

• Jorge Martin will 🍎land factory Ducati 2024 seat if he wins championship today 
• Ducati boss shares ‘team orders’ decision for Sunday's Valencia M🏅otoGP

Speaking to , Bastianini said: “During the race I had a problem at the start. Something happened to Miller so I had to close the throttle and this prevented me from going fast in turn one and deactivating the front device. 🅘;

“I did the whole first lap with a blocked❀ fork and in order to try and unblock it I had to stay on it.&𒉰nbsp;

“Too bad because we could have had a decent race, even if we we꧅ren’t up front.”

It is widely being reported that Ducati could relegate Bastinaini to the Pramac team if Jorꦺge Martin wins the title today.

Bastianini’s performance at Sepang was a reminder that he is good enough to be aboard that factory bike, but running the #1 platꦇe is also import🦩ant to the Italian brand.

So promoting Martin could be the sensible choice but Bastianin🐓i is hoping Francesco Bagnaia retains his crown.  

“I’m not seeing much of him these days,” said Bastianini when speaking about the form of B🐼a💮gnaia.

“He improved today even if he couldn’t a🐠chieve more in the sprint. I think he’ll be competitive in the main race and I hope so.”