The Qatar GP will certainly go down in Fabio Di Giannantonio’s career as the rider, then in his second season in MotoGP, achieved his best performances: he was second in the Sprint race, and won a GP in the top category for the first time on Sunday. The Italian has already said that he wants to be at least in the top three, but… can he do even better?
The now Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team rider proved to be very competitive in the tests at Losail, with the fifth best time on the first day and the eighth on the second, and at the end of these he pointed to the factory riders as the favourites to win at the start of the season, but he also made it clear that he wants to be in the fight for the top three places and given what he showed, such a scenario wouldn’t be totally unreasonable.
Used to not being seen as one of the outsiders or contenders for the victory, DiGia doesn’t 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 place on the grid, and then the #49 just said he was focused on… racing.
And that’s exactly what the rider, who is still on a familiar bike – the Ducati Desmosedici GP23 – said he was going to try to do, although this time he didn’t shy away from showing a little more ambition, saying: ‘I think we’re in a good position, where we can fight for the podium at the moment, so I’m going to give it a go and then we’ll see’.
And if he’s on top form and achieves a good result, could Di Giannantonio join the ranks of the drivers fighting for the top five in the championship?
We’ll have to wait and see what DiGia can do, but it’s certain that if the Italian keeps up the form he showed at the end of 2023, this year he could have a say in the riders who can define “who wins” the world championship, because for now he doesn’t seem to be among the favourites.