In 2013, Andrea Dovizioso joined Ducati as a MotoGP rider. At the time, he encountered a chaotic situation. The Borgo Panigale manufacturer was far from competing for the titles that Dovizioso would fight for between 2017 and 2019. Everything changed with the arrival of general manager Gigi Dall’Igna a year later.
The Italian rider told DAZN, according to the Motosan website: ‘When I arrived, there was a lot of confusion. The engineers and the people within Ducati had enough quality, but it was chaos, and there wasn’t a clearly defined hierarchy’.
Despite the lack of competitiveness of the bike, Dovizioso explained that the problem ran much deeper:
– The Ducati wasn’t complicated; it just didn’t work. We were losing 40 or 45 seconds by the end of each race. The bike wasn’t competitive. There wasn’t any productive work. There was no sensible planning, and when you are being left behind by so many seconds at the end of races and see no improvements, everything becomes very heavy.
The team needed a strong leader, which is when Dall’Igna came in as general manager in 2014. The difference was felt immediately, according to #04: ‘Gigi Dall’Igna immediately managed to bring clarity to all the work, making it possible to reduce the gap to zero. It took us many years, but that’s normal because we were also competing against the Japanese manufacturers, who at that time were very strong, with very strong riders’.