Last year, Ducati won the MotoGP riders’ championship for the second consecutive year, but had to manage a close fight until the end between their factory rider Francesco Bagnaia and Jorge Martín from the Prima Pramac Racing satellite team. Marco Bezzecchi (VR46/Ducati) was also in the contention.
Paolo Ciabatti, who was Ducati’s sporting director until the end of 2023, admitted to the website Motosan.es that it was a complicated situation to some extent because they didn’t know which rider would be the champion. However, he emphasized that it was a good problem knowing that, whoever the champion was, they would be a Ducati rider:
– On one hand, no, because when you are sure that you are going to win the World Championship, it is a good problem to manage. Because at the moment when [Brad] Binder couldn’t win, there were Pecco, Jorge, and Marco. Ducati was going to be the world champion of riders. Then it was also constructors. The end was quite complicated because Pecco and Jorge were very competitive. It’s a good problem, but you have to take a lot of aspirins because you know you won everything, but you still don’t know with which rider.
