The MotoGP manufacturers and the opposing riders against the eight Ducatis on the track. Dorna boss Carmelo Ezpeleta responds to criticism.
Ducati has built its second MotoGP class title brick by brick. First with the evolution of one Desmosedici GP highly competitive on every track, it came close to the title three times with Andrea Dovizioso, once again with Pecco Bagnaia in 2021, until reaching the world goal in 2022, once again with the rider from Chivasso.
The Casa of Borgo Panigale has been able to offer an advantageous package to the new Gresini Racing and Mooney VR46 teams, so as to have eight prototypes on the starting grid. An advantage of no small importance, so much so that the other manufacturers are pushing to remove even this “surplus”. In particular, a strong imbalance has arisen, now that Yamaha will only have two bikes on the track after the separation from the team RNF extension of Razlan Razali who has signed with Aprilia.
The Dorna boss in defense of Ducati
Over the course of the season, the dominance of the Ducati Desmosedicis became preponderant on some circuits. So that Marc Marquez he did not hesitate to ironically define the MotoGP championship as a “Ducati Cup”. Some criticism has also moved it Aleix Espargarò who, until the Aragon Grand Prix, was in the running for the world title. Then he was also outclassed in the standings by Enea Bastianini who stole third place from him in the last round in Valencia.
In 2023, Ducati’s supremacy will be even more accentuated, given that there will be only 20 prototypes and no longer 22 with the exit of Suzuki. The criticisms have become so bombastic that they have reached the CEO of Dorna, Carmelo Ezpeleta, which however refers to the sender. “It’s like when MotoGP was the realm of Rossi or Marquez“, he told the Spanish newspaper ‘Marca’. “They have the same regulations and the same possibilities, let’s let the others move. There are eight Ducatis because the conditions that Ducati gave to the satellite teams were better than those offered by all the others. On other occasions we had eight Hondas and eight Yamahas“.
For the 2024 season, FIM President Jorge Viegas has announced that Valentino Rossi’s VR46 team will likely switch to Yamaha. A hypothesis not confirmed by the Tavullia team, which is silent for now. Obviously it will be necessary for the Iwata company to be able to offer a competitive package to the team managed by Alessio Salucci and Pablo Nieto. We will only have an idea at the beginning of next year, when we will see winter work in practice in the preseason and during the first races.
