How Ducati cannibalized MotoGP

In the world of football, the importance of the coach is at the center of long debates. There are those who consider his role secondary because it is the players who take the field and those who instead highlight the great tactical, athletic and motivational contribution provided by the coaches. On motorbikes, however, the rider has always had the upper hand, because the influence of driving has always been considered superior to the quality of the vehicle entrusted to him by the mechanics. The dominance exhibited in the last two years by Ducati and the difficulties revealed by talents of the caliber of Marc Márquez and Fabio Quartararo (2021 champion), crippled by the poorly competitive Honda and Yamaha, have ended up changing beliefs rooted over time. In 2023 the bikes from the Borgo Panigale company rewrote the record books of the premier class: 17 GPs won and as many poles (of which 15 in a row) in 20 rounds, as well as 43 podiums in total. Furthermore, six different Ducatisti climbed to the top step of the podium in the traditional races and a seventh, Alex Márquez, won two Sprints, the Saturday races over a distance reduced to one hundred kilometres. In fact, on eight occasions last year the podium was monopolized by Ducati, which also won the wooden medal at Mugello and Malaysia and, not satisfied, in Germany it grabbed all the top five positions, imitating what it did for the last time Honda in 2003.

Such numbers only confirm the thesis of the superiority of the Desmosedici, which has become the object of desire of the entire grid, so much so that it induced Márquez to say goodbye to Honda after 11 years and to give up one year of a contract that paid him 12 million euros . A supremacy that bears the name and surname of Gigi Dall’Igna, who in 2014 took over the role of General Director of Ducati Corse from 110 Filippo Preziosi. The architect of Aprilia’s latest successes, the engineer received carte blanche from CEO Claudio Domenicali to bring Ducati back to the top it hadn’t tasted since 2007, when it rose to the top of the world with Casey Stoner.

Dall’Igna’s first great intuition was to take advantage of the concessions provided by the international motorcycle federation and Dorna to allow the weaker teams to make up for the gap between Honda and Yamaha. The foundations of Bologna’s current dominance were laid with the Desmosedici GP15, a bike completely different from the Ducatis that preceded it, in terms of the engine but also for the wings which increased the aerodynamic load, consequently increasing the grip. «We have grown season after season», Dall’Igna recalled several times, «innovation after innovation, doing something that no one had done before: developing the sporting part together with the technical one. Many of the riders who race on Ducatis began their careers in MotoGP riding a Ducati, they built themselves with us and we with them.” In addition to increasing the power of the engines, up to exceeding 360 km/h, the Ducati engineers gave vent to their imagination, creating solutions that fit into the regulatory gaps, improving performance in every aspect: from the aerodynamic wings to the “spoon” (the water deflector mounted under the fork to cool the rear tire) up to the lowers to keep the bike flat on the ground.

However, all this would not have been possible with just two bikes on the track at the weekends, given that in the rest of the year the riders cannot get on the MotoGP bikes, except on the miserable days of official testing. Yamaha knows something about this and would like to return to having four places on the grid in 2025, doubling the current bikes, so as to be able to collect more useful data for development. And precisely the availability of eight Ducatis in MotoGP is one of the keys to the supremacy of the reds, which not surprisingly began in 2022 when Gresini Racing left Aprilia to become Ducati customer teams. «For us the satellite teams are very important», specified Dall’Igna, «not only from an economic point of view, but also from a technical point of view, because they allow us to have more data and more information to support development, but also because we can invest in young pilots”. To manage everything, the two riders of the Pramac team are directly under contract with Ducati Corse: for a three-year period they were Johann Zarco and Jorge Martín, but in 2024 the Frenchman gives way to Franco Morbidelli (who, however, is on half-duty for the January injury in Portimão in which he hit his head). Last year Pramac became the first independent team to win the team world title in the history of MotoGP, preceding the official team, with the Mooney VR46 on the third step of the podium.

Since MotoGP took the place of 500 in 2002, it had never happened that a single manufacturer monopolized the steps of the podium in the team classification. Yet another proof of the strength of the Ducatis, on which Márquez joins this year, having proposed himself to the Gresini team where his brother Alex already raced: the team managed by Nadia Padovani, widow of Fausto Gresini, has the most successful roster, adding up the eight World Championships won by Márquez senior with two from his little brother. With this move the Spaniard seeks to join Valentino Rossi on nine points, after a four-year period which brought him just three victories also due to the injury to his right humerus, which he operated on four times. But above all Márquez wants to rediscover that riding pleasure that the shortcomings of the RC213V revealed in the last two years, when he was the best Honda rider in the standings, had taken away from him. “I’m excited about this new challenge,” he said at the announcement. «It was not an easy decision because it will be a big change in all aspects. Sometimes in life you have to step out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself to continue growing. I know I will have to adapt many things in my riding style and it won’t be easy.”

Fourth place in the Valencia test in November ruled out a crisis of rejection but the first sessions of 2024, although closed in the uptown areas, have reduced his joy: in Sepang he was sixth but 588 thousandths behind Pecco Bagnaia, in Losail fourth delayed by 383 thousandths from Italian. The impression is that the Desmosedici GP24 supplied to the two official riders and the two Pramacs is already much better performing than the GP23 which will instead be the responsibility of the Gresini and VR46 teams – the latter this year will partner Marco Bezzecchi with Fabio Di Giannantonio. An advantage that will be enjoyed by the outgoing double world champion Bagnaia and his partner Enea Bastianini, who was affected last year by the injury at the first Grand Prix, but also by Martín, who gave up in 2023 only at the last round. The GP24s appear to be the only element in common between Bagnaia and Martín, as their performance also testifies: last year the Spaniard, decidedly more explosive, won nine Sprints against his rival’s four. Bagnaia, however, achieved more successes on Sunday (7 against 4) and almost double the number of podiums (15 against 8). Furthermore, in the entire year Bagnaia fell just seven times, compared to 29 crashes by Marc Marquez and 16 by Martín. Values ​​that testify to Bagnaia’s low propensity to make mistakes on Friday and Saturday, as recognized by Giacomo Agostini: «One aspect that I really like about Bagnaia is the work he does in practice: he doesn’t try to set a fast lap, think about fixing the bike. On the other hand they are called tests because you have to try to fine-tune the bike, you don’t need to give everything.”

Apart from Martín and the unknown injury, possible in a season marked by 21 rounds (two in Italy, at Mugello in June, at Misano in September) for 42 races, the main obstacle on the way to winning the third World Championship in a row Pecco could be Bastianini, second in the tests in Qatar and third in Malaysia. Furthermore, with both of their contracts expiring, Bastianini and Martín are vying for the remaining place in the official team for 2025, with the other mortgaged by Bagnaia.

From Eleven No. 55