In the past, the Ducati MotoGP was a sort of bike that you rode with a V-shaped trajectory in the corners, diving straight to the apex that you passed at moderate speed before reaccelerating hard, the bike almost straight. Conversely, the Yamaha used a U-shaped trajectory, with a lot of passing speed and a big lean. Today, things have at least come closer, if not completely reversed, and the M1 no longer has this advantage that characterized it for a long time, just as the Desmosedici is now far from being handicapped in the big curves…
At the press conference ahead of the Aragon Grand Prix, Spanish journalist Manuel Pecino said: Francesco Bagnaia When did this characteristic of the Borgo Panigale racing bikes change? The answer from the reigning double world champion was as clear as it was precise…
“It changed a bit when the engineers understood that Ducati riders could have different riding styles. That was in 2020. In 2019 I was there, but the situation between the factory teams and the satellite teams was quite different compared to the current situation, and my biggest problem was braking, because I couldn’t do what I wanted with my engine brake. As soon as we started to change it, in 2020 because they started to adapt the engine brake to all the riders, we started to increase our performance considerably, because I was using a completely opposite engine brake to Dovizioso’s, which was the reference at the time. And as soon as we started to do that, we started to see a bike that turned, and a bike that had a lot of cornering speed. And a good thing about the bike is that many riding styles can adapt to our bike because of that: we don’t have just one setting, one engine brake, one way the power comes. We have more things because every rider needs that, and we work on our own settings every weekend.”
A story that is reminiscent of Honda’s attitude towards Marc Marquezbut with the 2024 Desmosedici now being an excellent bike, and even the best bike of the moment, one can wonder in what direction it can still be improved, and what the number 1 has asked as an evolution to Gigi Dall’Igna and his engineers on the future GP25. Here again,
Francesco Bagnaia did not evade the question…
“First of all, it is impossible to have the perfect bike, because it is a mixture of things that is very difficult to achieve. But what we are missing at the moment is a little bit more traction in certain situations compared to the past, and that is something I ask of the engineers.”
Today, the lead taken by Ducati seems difficult for its rivals to catch up with, and it may not be about to stop, despite the concession system!
Ducati MotoGP
