Fabio Di Giannantonio reveals why, as a young boy, he didn’t want to know anything about motorcycles for a long time and how his father ultimately convinced him after all.
“My father had a great passion for motorsport, especially for MotoGP, which back then was still the 500cc class,” says MotoGP rider Fabio Di Giannantonio, thinking back to his childhood. ‘As a young boy, I often watched my father doing a few laps on a track just for fun,’ recalls ‘Diggia’.
One of these days with his father at a track left a lasting impression on little Fabio for years to come, and not exactly in a positive way. “Once he had me in his arms as he was loading his motorcycle into the transporter with his other arm. It was a Suzuki and the engine was running,”
“The bike started to tip over. And while he still had me in his arms, he turned the throttle with his other hand. The engine roared and it scared me to death. From then on, I didn’t want to see any motorbikes,” grins the MotoGP rider, who will have factory material available for the first time in the 2025 season in the VR46 team.
How did young Fabio eventually find his love for motorcycle racing after the childhood experience described? “One day, my father tried to persuade me to ride a pocket bike. I was about five years old at the time. He said, ‘Come on, let’s try it.’ But I didn’t want to.”
“At some point,” Di Giannantonio continues, ”I finally gave it a try. And from then on, it was suddenly the best thing I’d ever tasted. I really enjoyed it and I remember how my father and I always spent his two days off together from then on.”
“He didn’t have much free time because he had a normal job,” the current VR46 driver says about his father. ‘But one or two days a week we always went pocket-biking together back then. And that’s how it all began.’
