MotoGP | Diggia: “Without a fight, I could have gone to get Pecco”

A year ago he was close to leaving MotoGP and today, at the end of the British Grand Prix, Fabio Di Giannantonio is among the best interpreters of the Desmosedici GP23. The Pertamina Enduro VR46 team rider achieved a fifth position in a comeback from the tenth place on the starting grid.

Say He was perhaps the rider who completed the most overtaking moves, engaging in battles with Pedro Acosta first and then with Alex Marquez, getting closer and closer to the leading group, but too late to be able to test himself against the riders fighting for the top: “Mamma mia, it was tough because the race was really tough, but I had a lot of fun! In terms of performance, a bit too much, in fact I lost a lot of time with Alex Marquez and Pedro Acosta. I passed them to try to get away and they passed me again. In fact, at a certain point I tried to signal ‘let’s go and get them, let’s not waste time’. With Alex I lost two seconds”.

“Apart from that, I think we had a great race, we were going really fast, we had a great pace. We weren’t too far from Pecco, we could have caught him in third place. I’m happy with this race, because first of all you have to look at the positive things. Then, when you start tenth, there are race situations that you can’t predict. Even if you’re faster, you have to battle with the slower ones, it’s part of the game,” explained Diggia, who found himself losing precious time in the early race battles.

Without the brawls, the VR46 rider would have gained two seconds that would have allowed him to reach the leading group, however to take that extra step something is still missing and the gap between the GP23 and the GP24 is still too wide: “What am I missing? A bike like the others. Unfortunately, as I always say, ours is a great bike that can make the top 5. But to take that step and really stay with the leaders is a bit difficult. The difference is that when you go towards the apex, our bike pushes a bit more, while the 24 turns better. So it prepares the exit better and gains both in the center of the corner and on the exit”.

In a decidedly cool British Grand Prix, tyre choice was even more important than usual. Yesterday the cold betrayed several drivers and today more attention was paid not only to consumption: “Fuel management? I didn’t think about it, the engineers did the calculations well, it was their thing. As for the tyres, I tried to manage them at the start even though I had to pass. However, I started to have a good pace, especially when at a certain point I went around alone I started to drive very cleanly”.

“In the end I arrived with the right consumption to continue pushing, but the tyres were very used, in fact the driving was quite on the limit. With the cool weather it is all a bit easier to overtake, but the choice of tyre was more difficult because if the hard had stayed at the right temperature it would have been fine. But you can’t predict it, because if you stay alone in front it is easy for it to get cold”, he explained Say.

Right at Silverstone, MotoGP celebrated its 75th anniversary and, for the occasion, each team showed off a vintage livery. The Pertamina Enduro VR46 team’s livery paid homage to Valentino Rossi and Di Giannantonio also showed off a special helmet, which on the track truly recalled the Doctor: “How beautiful, damn it! When I saw the bike already from the pre-weekend photos and then finished it was crazy. I made a helmet asking Vale’s permission dedicated to him and the team. A helmet more than anything to thank them for the opportunity they gave me this year, it was important to do something like this. There was a bit more pressure, because when you wear a helmet so loaded you have to do well. But today it was extra motivation”.