Despite crashes: Di Giannantonio defends switch to new Ducati aero

The Motorcycle Grand Prix in Saxony ended early for Fabio Di Giannantonio in the gravel, and the VR46 ace’s gap to the World Championship leader widened once again. Ahead of the MotoGP summer break, however, the positives outweighed the negatives for ‘Diggia’. “Every point counts!” – words chosen by Fabio Di Giannantonio after his podium finish in the sprint race at the Sachsenring. With this result, the VR46 frontrunner managed to reduce the gap to World Championship leader Jorge Martin to 13 points on Saturday.

But it was all over in a flash: on Sunday, the race ended for the Roman rider after barely more than three laps. Initially, after the Grand Prix, ‘Diggia’ couldn’t quite put his finger on the cause of the crash whilst chasing Ai Ogura, who went on to finish second: “We still need to work out for ourselves exactly what went wrong. Because the data we’ve been able to analyse so far was an exact copy of the previous lap. Lean angle, throttle position, speed, suspension – everything was exactly the same as before. It’s strange, but in our sport, lots of little things come together that aren’t always easy to explain.”

The Roman didn’t want to dwell on the crash for too long: “It was the first major mistake this year. It’s frustrating that it happened, but it was bound to happen at some point.” Despite a successful sprint race, the former Moto3 World Championship runner-up had gone into the Grand Prix with a different aerodynamic configuration to the one used on Saturday: “Our bike was already working very well on Saturday. That’s why we came to the conclusion that we wouldn’t be taking too big a risk by testing a different aero configuration in the warm-up. If it hadn’t worked as we’d hoped, we’d simply have removed it again – and still had a bike capable of a podium finish. I saw that Marc and Alex Márquez had already used this aero set-up, and it actually worked better on this track!”

The interim assessment ahead of the summer break is positive for the rider now sitting fifth in the World Championship standings, despite the mistake at the end. The World Championship standings are closer than they’ve been in a long time: “I see plenty of positives! We’ve had loads of great results, podium finishes and a win so far, and we’re only 24 points behind the overall leader – we’re having a fantastic season. We’re always quick, and on a wide variety of circuits. I’m enjoying every moment of it! That’s the key thing, and that’s what we’re taking with us into the summer break.”

Willkommen zum Rennen am Sachsenring

Foto: Gerhard Schiel

Grid Girls

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Jorge Martin

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Fans

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Marc Márquez

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Paddock

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Paddock

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Fabio Di Giannantonio

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Start des Rennens

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Start des Rennens

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Blick auf die Strecke

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Fabio Quartararo

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Alex Márquez

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Martin und Bagnaia

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Fans

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Fernández und Ogura

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Pedro Acosta

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Paddock

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Luca Marini

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Marc Márquez

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Pecco Bagnaia

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Binder und Moreira

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Marc Márquez gewinnt das Rennen

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Sieger Marc Márquez

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Sieger Marc Márquez

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Ai Ogura, Marc Márquez, Raúl Fernández

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Sieger Marc Márquez

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Willkommen zum Rennen am Sachsenring

© Gerhard Schiel