How Bagnaia made MotoGP history in Ducati’s Red Bull-esque 2023

The numbers posted by Ducati in the 2023 MotoGP season knocked down every historical wall its rivals had put up in the past. From 20 rounds, Ducati riders scored 17 wins – the most of any marque in a single campaign. It scored 17 pole positions, 43 podiums in total, managed eight rostrum lockouts and won all three championships: riders’, constructors’, and the teams’ title with Pramac Racing.

While it would be easy to chalk up Ducati’s statistics in 2023 simply to its sheer show of force in fielding eight riders, six of whom posted grand prix victories, its position as MotoGP’s dominator was the culmination of almost 10 years of work within its “new history”.

“I think that there is a history that after the arrival of [general manager] Gigi Dall’Igna, [and] we say new management, everything changed after 2014 and then we started with a new history in MotoGP with the new bike that we have been developing year by year,” says Ducati sporting director Davide Tardozzi.

“This bike is not a revolution. This bike is the evolution of the 2015. So, we arrived at this point where everybody is very competitive. We were in trouble when everybody said, ‘Only Casey Stoner can ride the bike.’ And now we’ve come to the point where we have eight riders and all eight riders are very competitive. And this is something that made us really proud about our job.

“I think in this moment we arrived to the point where we can manage the results considering we never stopped evolving the bike, because our competitors are honestly very tough and we are scared they can find something that can make them faster than us. But, in the end, we are happy about this situation.”

Any fears Ducati may have had about rival defeats never really came to much in 2023.