It’s a Ducati universe
Ominous signs as firm’s riders all look dangerous
Seven bikes in the top nine in the Sepang test last month, and seven bikes in the top nine again in Portimao last weekend…
It’s fair to say that MotoGP’s pre-season has been something of a winter wonderland for Ducati.
The Bologna factory locked out the top spot in all three winter tests and there are ominous signs that Ducati could exert even greater dominance in 2023 than it managed during an unforgettable campaign last season.
Testing has provided irrefutable evidence of what was already staring everybody in the face. The Ducati Desmosedici is, by some distance, the best bike on the grid.
For example, Luca Marini, who will ride a year-old GP22 this season, boasted recently that his bike has ‘no weak points’.
And it has taken just six days on the all-new GP23 for Bagnaia to say the new version is already better than the bike he rode last year to become Ducati’s first MotoGP World Champion in 15 years.
Thanks to the genius of Borgo Panigale tech boffin Gigi Dall’Igna, the Ducati stops and accelerates better than any other bike on the grid. And we all know what a rocket it is in a straight line.
But perhaps the Desmosedici’s best attribute is its versatility. Last season, Ducati romped to 32 podiums with seven different riders. You must go all the way back to the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in 2020 for the last time a MotoGP race ended with no Ducati on the podium.
Sixteen of the 20 poles last season went to Ducati, with seven different riders heading the grid.
Ducati has a phenomenally good motorcycle but also a phenomenally deep talent pool to showcase their engineering ingenuity.
Ducati will once again flood the 2023 grid with eight bikes. Riders of different shapes, sizes, backgrounds, and riding styles. And yet the Desmosedici seems like it was tailor-made for all of them.
Would be it a shock to see all eight finish the season with a podium? Not in the slightest, which tells you all you need to know about the position of strength Ducati finds itself in.
‘All the riders are extremely comfortable’