Gigi: Ducati factory/satellite difference ‘a bit higher’ in 2024

Although Francesco Bagnaia and Jorge Martin finished first and second in the world championship on the latest 2023 Desmosedicis, the year-old bikes won GP races with Marco Bezzecchi (3) and Fabio di Giannantonio (1), plus a pair of Sprint victories for Alex Marquez and one for Bezzecchi.

Such form convinced third-in-the-world championship Bezzecchi to remain at VR46, turning down the offer of a switch to Pramac and access to the latest Ducati machinery in 2024.

It also helped convince Marc Marquez to leave Repsol Honda and join brother Alex at Gresini next year.

However, while explaining the difficulty in making major design changes due to the limited winter testing available, Ducati Corse general manager Dall’Igna expects a bigger gap between the GP24 and GP23s.

“The problem is that we do not have a lot of tests during the winter to set up properly all the new parts that we would like to introduce,” Dall’Igna said.

“We made a mistake [in the past] because we tried to put too many developments on the bike. So we learned from that lesson and we don’t want to put too many evolutions on the bike.

“This year [2024] we will do something more. So I think that for the next season, the difference between the factory bikes and the previous year’s bike will be a little bit higher.

“But we will see.”

As this season, the Factory (Francesco Bagnaia, Enea Bastianini) and Pramac (Jorge Martin, Franco Morbidelli) riders will have the latest spec Desmosedicis, with VR46 (Marco Bezzecchi, Fabio di Giannantonio) and Gresini (Marc Marquez, Alex Marquez) riding year-old bikes.