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Eight seasons into his MotoGP™ career, Franco Morbidelli still gets the same buzz from competing in the premier class.
“ I enjoy every race that I do,” he said recently.“ Being a MotoGP™ rider is the best thing in the world. I enjoy racing. I love racing. Even if I crash, it’ s the same. Before crashing, you are having beautiful moments – you are believing. You feel amazing and then maybe you crash. It’ s only a small bump along the way. I feel lucky.”
The Italian is in the midst of his strongest MotoGP™ season since 2020, when he finished runner-up in the championship. In the years that followed, injury and uncompetitive machinery contributed to difficult campaigns from 2021 to 2022, testing both his resilience and belief.
A switch to VR46 Ducati in 2024 breathed fresh life into his career, and since then he has gone from strength to strength. In Argentina he scored his first podium in 1,414 days.“ I had time to forget how nice it was,” he admitted afterwards.“ I had time to think that I wasn’ t worth it. I had time to think that I wasn’ t enough. I had time to think about many, many good and bad things altogether.”
Morbidelli believes the VR46 squad has been central to his resurgence, not least at Misano, where he bounced back strongly after a difficult round in Barcelona the week before.“ I made two silly mistakes in Barcelona,” he conceded.“ We needed to bring it home and bring it home in a safe way. That’ s what we did. Thanks to the team, who stayed really close to me in the week between the two races. We were together, spoke a lot, and tried to present ourselves with the right spirit.”
The 2025 season is Morbidelli’ s second with Ducati’ s mighty GP24. While he knows the bike intimately, he says there is always more to learn, recently praising the post-race test at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli. There, he was able to explore solutions that may prove valuable this weekend.
“ We went through things we don’ t usually get the chance to do during a race weekend. You choose one direction and maybe another countermeasure across the weekend. We did that kind of work – doubt extinguishing. The pace was good, the speed was decent, and that’ s always important.”