The Qatar GP that will certainly be remembered in Fabio Di Giannantonio’s career after the rider, then in his second season in MotoGP, achieved his best performances: he finished second in the Sprint race, and won his first GP in the premier category on Sunday. The Italian has already said that he wants to be at least in the top three but… could it be even better?
The now rider of the Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team proved to be quite competitive in the tests in Losail, with the fifth best time on the first day and the eighth on the second, and at the end of these, he pointed out the riders with factory bikes as the favorites for victory at the start of the season, but he also made it clear that he intends to fight for the top three positions and considering what he showed, such a scenario would not be completely unreasonable.
Accustomed to not being seen as one of the outsiders or contenders for victory, Di Giannantonio does not have the pressure of other riders like Pecco Bagnaia or Jorge Martín, which “frees” him in part from that expectation, and that’s precisely where the rider knows how to shine: last year he won in Qatar when he didn’t even have a team for 2024 and was fighting for a spot on the grid, and then #49 only said he was focused on… racing.
And that’s exactly what the rider, who continues with a bike that is familiar to him – the Ducati Desmosedici GP23 – said he would try to do, although this time he did not refrain from showing a little more ambition, stating: ‘I think we are in a good position, where we can fight for the podium at the moment, so I will try and then we’ll see’.
And if he is in good form and achieves a good result, could Di Giannantonio enter the group of riders fighting for the top five in the championship?
It’s still too early to see what DiGia can do, but one thing is certain: if the Italian maintains the form he showed at the end of 2023, he could have a say in determining the “who wins” the championship, because for now he doesn’t seem to be among the favorites.
