Dall’Igna: Ducati MotoE bike ‘just the start’, lap time ‘really good’

But the Italian engineer - fresh from achieving his lifelong goal of a MotoGP title, courtesy of Francesco Bagnaia last season - wasn’t on stage to talk about Gresini’s 2023 premier-class project with Alex Marquez and Fabio di Giannantonio.

Instead, Dall’Igna took part in Gresini’s MotoE presentation, introducing the new 'V21L' machine, as Ducati takes over from Energica as exclusive supplier for the electric class.

“This is the first step of Ducati in electrification,” Dall’Igna said. “Ducati took this step in Ducati style; starting from racing, developing the technology and everything, before producing a street bike.

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“We are really, really happy about the feedback our test riders gave us last year and we are really curious to have the feedback from all the other [MotoE] riders in the official test shortly.

“We are proud of the bike because the lap time and everything at the moment seems really, really good.

“For an engineer, normally you cannot start from a blank piece of paper when you start a project, but in this case we had to.

“The principle numbers for the bike - wheelbase, centre of gravity position - has to be different because of the [extra battery] weight and also the power delivery of the electric motor is completely different.

“We had to think a lot before designing the bike. We have, again in Ducati style, some new ideas to develop on the bike... And this is the start.”

Alessio Finello and Matteo Ferrari will race for Gresini in MotoE this season. The first test of the Ducati era will take place from March 6-8 at Jerez, with the opening races during the French Grand Prix weekend at Le Mans in May.