MotoGP | Morbidelli: adaptation to Ducati finished, now comes the best part

Day after day, week after week, Franco Morbidelli is increasingly at ease with the Ducati. The Italian Grand Prix was further confirmation of the steps forward made in this first part of the season and now new objectives are arriving. The Pramac team rider finished the Mugello race in sixth position, after being in contact with the leading group for a while.

It is a reborn Morbidelli in 2024, after the complicated seasons in Yamaha and a practically non-existent winter as a Ducati rider due to the training accident. Now fully recovered physically, Morbido concentrated on adapting to the GP24, which seems to be proceeding quickly: “Solid weekend, we’re improving day after day.”

The improvements are so evident that the Roman from the Pramac team is almost disappointed with today’s result: “I was hoping for something better in this race to tell the truth. I had to slow down at a certain point because I was too hard on the brakes, so I thought it was better to slow down and get a good result rather than screw up like in Barcelona. But I was there because the podium was much closer. Here catching Martin or Bastianini was tougher, they had two or three tenths more.”

Even though the leading group was uncatchable, Morbidelli battled it out and now feels ready to work towards the new goals. The first of these is to constantly be in the leading group and have a consistency that allows him to fight for the podium. It won’t be easy, considering that he only learned the bike at the start of the season, but the speed of adaptation is a good sign.

“We must be able to do a great job, to improve further. To have the speed to fight for the podium first and foremost,” she explained. “The next goal is to have the speed to stay there, start on the first or second row consistently and stay in the top five positions in all the races, starting from the next one. We had to do the bulk of the initial approach in the first four or five races. We didn’t have the five days of testing and we had to do it on the weekends, unfortunately. But that period passed quite well and quickly. Because when you don’t know a bike it could take you longer before you get close to its maximum potential. We, on the other hand, are getting there quite quickly and I’m happy about this. We just have to keep working like this and see where we can get,” he continued Soft.

Once the home race is over, it’s time for testing. Tomorrow the MotoGP remains at Mugello for a day of testing, which for Morbidelli will be fundamental: “It will be important to do more laps on the bike, to further improve the setting. I don’t know if it will be worth trying things, I have to talk to Ducati. But another test is very important for me.”