Enea Bastianini’s adventure with the factory Ducati team started in the worst way possible, when he crashed in the 2023 Portuguese Sprint Race, injuring his shoulder and taking a long time to recover. However, even if the start of 2024 has not been the best, Davide Tardozzi believes that the rider is starting to show his true potential.
The Factory Ducati Team Manager looked at the performance of the Italian rider, who will leave the team at the end of this year to join GASGAS Tech3, and recalled how his adventure with the team did not start in the best way, in 2023: ‘Last year it was a tremendous accident he had in the first race, and because of the shoulder problem – which took four or five months to recover – he was able to be in great physical condition at the end of the season, when he won and had a fantastic race in Malaysia’.
However, the number 23 is starting to show some of the reasons why Ducati decided to promote him, even though not everything has had the desired start, already in 2024: ‘This year didn’t start perfectly, but I believe that in the last races we’re starting to see the real Enea, as we saw in 2022’.
Bastianini is fourth in the MotoGP world championship, 11 points behind Marc Márquez.