Marco Bezzecchi is struggling to take off this MotoGP season, after achieving third place in the riders’ standings in 2023. At Portimao he achieved a slight upward trend, but the distance from the podium remains substantial and he seems not to have yet acclimatised to the transition from the Ducati GP22 to the GP23. Eleventh in the Sprint, sixth in qualifying and in the Sunday race: the first problem to be solved seems to be the clutch.
Bezzecchi and the starting phase
The situation is difficult for Valentino Rossi’s VR46 team. Since the winter tests, the team made up of the two Italians Marco Bezzecchi and Fabio Di Giannantonio has remained behind the group, but also behind the other Ducati teams. The Lenovo, Pramac and Gresini riders achieved victories and podiums in the first two MotoGP rounds, the best placing for a VR46 rider is Bezzecchi’s sixth place in the Portuguese GP. The young man from Romagna was consistently competitive last year and only dropped out of the world title race in the final stages. As in 2023, the Tavullia team has an unofficial Desmosedici, but it should be an advantage in the first seasonal outings. On the contrary, the person who is achieving good results with the GP23 is Marc Marquez with Gresini.
The atmosphere is bitter at Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing, directed by Pablo Nieto and Alessio Salucci, even if the sixth place in Portimao rekindles a glimmer of light. For his part, Marco Bezzecchi recognizes having made a mistake in the Sprint on Saturday. “Unfortunately I had a bad wheelie, which made me lose acceleration. This put me in the middle group“. Hence the eleventh place finish. For the first time he explains in detail that starts are a highlight in his results. “The Ducati clutch has been tough for me since my first year in MotoGP. I wasn’t a hero at the start in Moto2 either, but I’m going through a really difficult time in MotoGP“.
The driving style
Since the debut in the premier class in 2022 “I had problems getting good starts, I never managed to get three or four identical starts in a row. Last year I was at least able to be fairly consistent, although not too well“, continued Bezzecchi. Last year he won three Grands Prix and a Sprint, but with the GP23 the difficulties increased, given that it requires a different driving style. “I’m still trying to adapt because I can’t drive automatically yet“, admitted the 23 year old from the VR46 team. “Last year my strength was decelerating the bike in an inclined position with heavy pressure on the brakes. With this bike it works exactly the opposite. You have to brake the motorcycle well in a straight line and then release the brake so that the motorcycle steers into a curve. If you hold the brake longer, the bike turns much less than last year.“
Jonathan Rea, the official biography available on Amazon
Photo VR46
