Franco Morbidelli : It’s Not Time to Make ‘Crazy’ Maneuvers

RiderTua.com – Franco Morbidelli predicted that last weekend he would have to suffer, and in fact he suffered in the race. The Italian rider faces his first race of the year with an accumulation of zero kilometers, aka not yet familiar with his new bike, the Ducati GP24, a machine that ‘Franky’ could not test in the Malaysia and Qatar tests due to the serious fall he suffered, at the end of January while training with the Panigale V4 R his at the Almeria Circuit.

For the 29 year old rider, the Losail event was like an individual test for him. His only experience on Ducati MotoGP came last November, when he was only able to complete a few laps on the Desmosedici GP23, so thinking about a good result in the opening round of the 2024 season is something the impossible.

Franco Morbidelli : It’s Not Time to Make ‘Crazy’ Maneuvers

As expected by both the rider and the team, Franco qualified last in Q1 on Saturday. On the same day, in the Sprint Race, he finished in 20th place, overtaking Luca Marini with many problems on his new Honda bike, and the next day , in the main race on Sunday, Morbi found himself slightly better on the Pramac Racing Ducati team bike and took 18th place, ahead of Takaaki Nakagami, Marini and Jack Miller who had previously fallen at turn one.

On Saturday, after the Sprint Race, Morbidelli positively evaluated his first race on a bike he still doesn’t know well. “I have to say that it was quite an experience to do the race after only doing 20 laps and spending a month to recover without “I was able to practice. But the experience was good, I had fun. I previously thought I would race alone (behind), but then I found myself confident enough to stay behind Marini and overtake him after that,” explained Franco Morbidelli who received permission from the doctor 48 hours after starting the Qatar GP…

Morbidelli continued, “If we look at the time records… I’ve gone faster than last year, but this year everyone is faster. I haven’t put too much pressure on the bike or the tires because I’m still a little stiff, I haven’t ridden a MotoGP bike for four months. … and last month I didn’t ride the bike at all. But I felt fine in the Sprint race and I saw a lot of room for improvement and a lot of potential,” said Morbidelli, who later admitted he felt very tired at the end of Sunday’s race. where he feels good on his bike and even dares to overtake occasionally.

Regarding his bike, Morbidelli emphasized that the package Ducati has offered him is extraordinary, “Every time I go out on the track I learn something, especially highlighting the speed shown by my teammate, Jorge Martin, winner of Saturday’s race… Martin is very fast and does amazing things with this bike. The best Ducati riders are perfectly in tune with the package and do great things because this bike allows you to do it.”

Facing the new year without undergoing pre-season and having to understand the new bike made Morbidelli reluctant to take too big a step. He explained that he has a gradual process ahead of him before thinking about more ambitious goals, which is why he said… “I can’t say when the time will come to do something because I don’t have any plans. I’m going step by step, Or the next step is to improve the bike settings, continue to learn the Ducati racing style and become faster in every race on the track.”

For now Morbidelli will continue to use all the free practice sessions and races he has as pre-season sessions, and when he understands the secrets of the Desmosedici, then we will see what he is capable of on this machine. “The important thing in these first two or three races is to get “the right experience and continue to take the right steps with the team to work better. The time will come to do something crazy, but not now,” said the Pramac rider.