Who will carry Italy's MotoGP hopes in the post-Rossi era?

While getting anywhere near Rossi's level of success is a mighty task for the next generation of Italian stars, someone will emerge as stronger than the rest.

Francesco Bagnaia and Franco Morbidelli were the obvious candidates by the end of last season, but it was countrymen Enea Bastianini and Celestino Vietti who stole the limelight in Qatar.

Morbidelli, 27, and Bagnaia, 25, are both members of Rossi's VR46 Academy, have won multiple MotoGP races and have each finished as title runner-up, Morbidelli in 2020 and Bagnaia in 2021.

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"I think that Italy in MotoGP is in a good situation, even without me. And this is positive," Rossi said at Misano last year.

"We will have Pecco, who can fight for the championship and Franco Morbidelli will also be very strong, because with a factory Yamaha he can be very fast. So I think he can fight for the championship also.

"From the Academy side, will have also my brother and Bezzecchi, I think they are two very fast riders, as they demonstrated in Moto2.

"And also Bastianini. Bastianini is not our [VR46] rider, but [Misano] was impressive. Incredible. He was very fast. All weekend he rode like a devil and in the race he also did the fastest lap.

"So congratulations to him and I think he can have a very strong future."

A strong future indeed...

When the red lights went on in Qatar for the first MotoGP season-opener without Rossi since 2000, it wasn't Bagnaia or Morbidelli who burst out of the darkness to put Italy on the top step of the podium but Bastianini, who took his first MotoGP victory.

As Rossi indicated, the 24-year-old former Moto2 champion had already marked himself out as a major talent by carving through the field to a pair of Misano podiums, as a rookie, on a two-year-old Ducati at Avintia last season.

The move to Gresini and upgrade to a year-old (but proven) GP21 helped Bastianini, who rarely qualified higher than tenth last season, show his full potential by starting on the front row in Qatar.

With one victory already in the bag, few would be surprised if Bastianini goes on to match - or even exceed - Morbidelli's satellite heroics in 2020.

Depending on how fast Ducati can refine the GP22's teething issues and Yamaha's performance problems with the M1, Bastianini may even prove to be Italy's strongest rider this season.

Something of a secret weapon for Bastianini, according to fellow Italian Andrea Dovizioso, is crew chief Alberto Giribuola, previously alongside Dovi for his 14 wins and triple title runner-up achievements at Ducati.

"For me, a big contribution," Dovizioso said of Giribuola's role in Bastianini's MotoGP success. "Especially last year, because it was [Bastianini's] first year and to have the right person close to you makes the difference.

"Even in Qatar, I don’t know the details, but I know how good 'Pigiamino' [Giribuola] is.

"For sure the team did a great job also, because you can't win just with one person, but I think Bastianini is in the right situation because he has a person [Giribuola] close to him that knows everything about Ducati.

"I know how it works in Ducati and to have a person who can stay focussed on what you need to be fast with that bike and not waste time on other things - someone who knows what you have to do and also not do - makes the difference.

"I think this is a big percentage of why [Bastianini] became very competitive at the end of last season. Then he did really good winter tests and was able to win the first race."

Few doubt that Bastianini will stand on the top step again this season, but a bigger question is whether he will need to wait for a future factory seat to mount a title challenge.

Winning the premier-class crown as a satellite rider eluded even Rossi, runner-up as a rookie in the old 500cc class in 2000. It should become clearer over the next few races if Bastianini has a realistic shot at making history as the first satellite champion of the MotoGP era.

"I won the title in 2020 in Moto2, and I’m here to win the title in MotoGP, but for the moment I don’t have a lot of experience," Bastianini said ahead of round two in Mandalika, where he will seek to become the first satellite rider to win back-to-back races at different tracks since Marco Melandri in 2005.

"In Qatar I managed the race well but Mandalika is a new track, we only did the test here, and we will see [what happens] during the championship. My target remains the top five in 2022."

Alongside Bastianini at Gresini this season is rookie countryman Fabio di Giannantonio, Moto3 title runner-up in 2018 and a race winner in Moto2 last season. di Giannantonio surprised by being fastest of this year's rookies at last November's Jerez test, before food poisoning at Sepang disrupted his pre-season preparations.

It's early days but the 23-year-old, who finished a fraction behind fellow rookies Remy Gardner and Darryn Binder for 17th in Qatar, has proven to be a fast learner in the smaller classes, with rostrum appearances in both his debut Moto3 and Moto2 campaigns.

Rossi's younger brother Luca Marini was left in Bastianini's shadow as an Avintia team-mate last season, but VR46 secured his promotion to the very latest GP22 for his second year. Fastest on day two of testing at Mandalika showed that Marini has the raw speed to succeed, but much depends on ironing-out performance issues with the new bike.

While Rossi enjoyed almost immediate success as he moved up the grand prix ladder, Marini spent 2.5 years in Moto2 without a podium before opening the floodgates with 15 rostrums and six race wins over the next 2.5 years. Might Marini's MotoGP career follow a similar pattern?

Rookie team-mate Marco Bezzecchi only has one MotoGP weekend under his belt, but is also one to watch for the future. Especially having caught the eye of Casey Stoner, no less, for his riding ability in Moto2.

"Bezzecchi has something, maybe extra, but I haven’t seen it enough [in 2021]," Stoner said during a visit to the paddock last season. "I saw something in him, the lines he was able to do I didn't see others do. I'd like to see what he can do in MotoGP with more power."

Bezzecchi won three races and took 14 podiums during three seasons in the Moto2 class, signing off his intermediate class career with third overall, as best of the rest behind Ajo team-mates Remy Gardner and Raul Fernandez.

Stepping up to MotoGP on a GP21, Bezzecchi made a strong start to his first MotoGP race in Qatar and was on target to be top rookie, until he fell.

Bezzecchi just edges di Giannantonio as the youngest of the Italians in MotoGP (Dovizioso is the oldest at 35). But there was an even younger Italian grand prix winner, and fellow VR46 rider, in Qatar.

Celestino Vietti, 20, began his second Moto2 season in stunning style with a massive 6.2s victory in what was also his first podium in the class.

Such a performance won't have gone unnoticed by MotoGP teams and if Vietti can continue such stellar form, he will surely be a candidate for the premier-class grid in 2023.

"For sure he’s a title contender," Marini said of Vietti. "He did a perfect race in Qatar. He worked really well in the tests, where they focussed more on race pace, not a fast lap time like others. I hope he can be so strong all season. 

"He grew a bit more this winter. He’s changed a bit, he looks more serious. Maybe this is a good way. Also after the Qatar victory he remained calm and was still focussed. He knows it’s just the first race. I think this is a good mentality, a good approach."

Another rising Italian that could soon be on the brink of MotoGP is Tony Arbolino. The 21-year-old is also starting his second Moto2 season and came close to matching his rookie best with fifth place in Qatar, on his Marc VDS debut. Arbolino followed that up by being fastest for much of opening practice in Indonesia.

Whatever happens, with six of the seven Italians already on the MotoGP grid under the age of 28 - plus the likes of Vietti, Arbolino and others looking to join them - Italy will certainly hope to avoid a repeat of the near two-decade wait between Franco Uncini's 1982 title and Rossi's first premier-class crown in 2001.