The Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix held this afternoon at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli is destined to remain in the history of motorcycle racing. Thanks to Enea Bastianini’s victory with the Ducati Lenovo Team’s Desmosedici GP, Ducati has achieved its 100th victory in MotoGP: an important milestone for the Bologna-based manufacturer achieved in a unique context, that of the home race on the track located in the heart of the Motor Valley, a few kilometres from headquarters.
Ducati thus enters a small elite capable of reaching 100 successes in MotoGP, which includes only two other companies. Ducati is also the first European manufacturer to achieve this result. The success of Bastianini also allowed Ducati to achieve the sixth Constructors’ World Title in its history, when there are still 6 Grands Prix to go until the end of the 2024 season. For the Bologna-based manufacturer, this is the fifth consecutive constructors’ title since 2020.
It was precisely in 2020 that Ducati celebrated the first important milestone of 50 victories in MotoGP thanks to the win achieved by Andrea Dovizioso (14 victories in total) on the Spielberg circuit in Austria. Up until that point, in addition to him, 6 other riders had managed to take the Rossa from Borgo Panigale to success. The first was obviously Loris Capirossi (who obtained a total of 7 victories with Ducati) at Montmelò in 2003, the year of Ducati’s debut in MotoGP. This was followed by the incredible victories of Casey Stoner (23), the first World Champion with the Desmosedici in 2007; Troy Bayliss (1), who, fresh from the Superbike World Title, took part in the Valencian Community GP in 2006 as a replacement for the injured Gibernau and won the race; Andrea Iannone (1), Jorge Lorenzo (3) and Danilo Petrucci (2).
In the space of four years, Ducati has established itself as the benchmark in the racing world and has managed to demonstrate this technical superiority by achieving another 50 successes and at the same time returning to win the World Riders’ Title after 15 years. Francesco Bagnaia, two-time World Champion with Ducati in 2022 and 2023, is currently the most successful rider with the Desmosedici GP, having scored 25 of the 100 successes obtained so far by the Red Bike in the premier class. For the race-winner Enea Bastianini today was his seventh MotoGP victory riding a Ducati. In 2021, Jack Miller (3) achieved his first success with the Desmosedici GP in Spain, followed by two more victories. The same year also saw the first victory for a Ducati satellite team rider, Jorge Martín with the Desmosedici GP of the Pramac Racing team. The current leader of the World Championship and last year’s runner-up, currently has 7 successes with Ducati. Marco Bezzecchi, a rider of the VR46 Racing Team, has instead achieved 3 victories with the Desmosedici GP, while one success bears the name of his teammate Fabio Di Giannantonio. Johann Zarco also contributed with a victory in 2023 in Australia, while Marc Márquez (Gresini Racing MotoGP) has two successes to his name, including the most recent one obtained in Misano two weeks ago in the GP of San Marino and the Riviera di Rimini.
Claudio Domenicali (CEO of Ducati Motor Holding): “The milestone of 100 MotoGP victories and the conquest of the Constructors’ World Title makes us proud and write the name Ducati even more indelibly in the history of the world’s top motorcycle racing competition. These moments are an opportunity to look back and give due importance to every single effort, to the hard work and to years of commitment and continuous innovation. These are the values that have characterised our participation in the MotoGP World Championship since 2003 and the perseverance and dedication with which we have applied them have led us to become the benchmark of the Championship today, through a working method that also includes a continuous exchange with the world of production motorcycles, as demonstrated by the new Panigale V4, the seventh generation of Ducati supersports bikes recently presented right here in Misano. We celebrated 50 victories in 2020, and the subsequent 50 have arrived over the last 4 years in an extraordinary crescendo of successes. 100 MotoGP victories and fifth consecutive Constructors’ World Championship title are the crowning achievement of our best sporting moment ever. A heartfelt thank you to all the riders, colleagues, engineers, technicians, our partners and sponsors, collaborators, Ducatisti and all the people who have worked hard with passion and determination over the years to take Ducati to the top step of the podium.”
Luigi Dall’Igna (General Manager of Ducati Corse): “Only four years have passed since we celebrated the first historic milestone of 50 victories in MotoGP and in such a short time, we have managed to add up the same number of successes and reach 100. Before us, only two other manufacturers had achieved this and we are the first Europeans to do so. It is certainly an important result, which fills us with immense pride. We owe all this to 15 fantastic riders, who have written important pages of history with us over the years. Today, we also conquer our sixth manufacturers’ title in MotoGP, the fifth consecutive. In addition to the riders and teams, this is the victory of all the men and women of Ducati Corse, many of whom are involved behind the scenes, who with their tireless work, passion and dedication have allowed us to grow and become what we are. So, a heartfelt thank you to all of them and a special thank you also to all our fans, the Ducatisti, who with their support push us every day to reach ever greater goals.”
