Shortly before the end of the 2024 MotoGP season, Marco Bezzecchi draws a sobering conclusion, because the second half of the season was more consistent, but no better than the first
The season finale of the 2024 MotoGP season is still to come – Barcelona instead of Valencia. But it is foreseeable that Marco Bezzecchi will not come close to his strong performances from the 2023 season. After winning three Grands Prix and one sprint in the Ducati customer team VR46 last year, a single third place has been the highlight for him so far this year.
Bezzecchi had a tough time with the Ducati GP23 he is riding this year right from the winter test in Sepang, Malaysia, in February. And not much has changed in that regard over the course of the season. Even in his successful 2023 season, “Bez” was riding a Ducati model from the previous year, which was the GP22 at the time. However, he got along much better with that bike than he does now with the GP23.
Now that the season is almost over, it can be said that “Bez” was more consistent in terms of results in the second half of the season than in the first. However, he didn’t achieve anything out of the ordinary: P4 in the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix (Misano 2) and in the Indonesian sprint were the highlights.
“Thanks to a slightly different setup, I can now avoid the difficulties better, but my basic feeling for this bike has not changed,” Bezzecchi said in Malaysia last weekend. ”The only difference [from the spring] is that I have got used to this bike during the season. But the characteristics and my feeling are still exactly the same.”
“We’ve struggled throughout the season,” Bezzecchi soberly acknowledges, adding: ”It sounds awful, but I really have to say that we’ve inevitably got used to it. Only the training has been a little bit better over the past few race weekends because I’ve been able to do a bit of damage control on a few fast laps.”
Significantly, in the 2024 MotoGP standings, Bezzecchi is still 21 points behind VR46 teammate Fabio Di Giannantonio, even though “Bez” has competed in all the race weekends, while “Diggia” has missed two race weekends (Austria after a crash in Friday’s practice and Malaysia due to his shoulder surgery).
Due to the operation, which, according to the statement from the VR46 team, was “a complete success” and performed by Professor Alessandro Castagna at the Villa Stuart Clinic in Rome last Saturday, Di Giannantonio will also miss the season finale (November 16/17) as planned. The same applies to the test on Tuesday (November 19). This test day for all MotoGP teams has also been moved from Valencia to Barcelona.
Bezzecchi will contest the season finale in Barcelona. It will be his farewell appearance with Valentino Rossi’s VR46 team, for which he has raced for five years (two years in Moto2 and three years in MotoGP). Right after the Grand Prix on November 17, “Bez” will be able to put the Ducati GP23 aside.
On the occasion of the Tuesday test, Bezzecchi will make his debut as an Aprilia factory rider. Whether or not his new teammate Jorge Martin will be the new MotoGP world champion will be decided in Barcelona at the latest in the Grand Prix on Sunday, or possibly as early as the sprint on Saturday.