There must be a great deal of psychological consolation in Marco Bezzecchi realizing that, even when his fairly depressing third yr in MotoGP would not meaningfully enhance, it hasn’t succeeded in kneecapping his aspirations of turning into a manufacturing unit rider.
But when the Aprilia contract for 2025 and 2026 has supplied that reduction, it hasn’t actually come throughout – not within the outcomes, not within the manner. And a part of that must be the implied acceptance that Bezzecchi’s travails won’t finish even when he lastly strikes on from the Ducati GP23.
At Assen, the spherical that adopted the announcement of Bezzecchi’s Aprilia deal, he drew an entire and utter clean, a meek shadow of the rider who regarded so potent on the twisty Dutch observe in 2021 and 2022. Then, impressively given it had come per week after the distress of Assen, Bezzecchi had what he would describe as “the worst day of the yr”.
After a quick crash and amid a close to complete lack of tempo, Bezzecchi plopped down into the chair within the media centre with a glance that made asking questions really feel like twisting the knife.
“The issue is at all times the identical,” he mentioned.
“The bike would not flip, after I put the bike in with brakes, I do not really feel the bike turning. I wrestle to hit the apex, I wrestle to launch the brakes.
“So I’ve to decelerate mid-corner, after which after I open the throttle, additionally the bike would not flip within the preliminary contact so I at all times go huge, and I proceed to lose velocity within the mid a part of the nook.
“I can brake as late as I would like however I can not put the bike in, so, yeah, that is the hardest a part of the driving.
“Then as quickly as I take confidence, each time I crash. When I attempt to do extra, additionally I crash.”
The 2023 Ducati is not match for Bezzecchi. Regardless of its very credible showings all all through final yr, it is not essentially an all-rounder.
“This bike in a pure manner carries a variety of velocity into the corners,” mentioned Bezzecchi’s VR46 team-mate Fabio Di Giannantonio. “That is not a assist, truthfully, to go quick, as a result of it makes you do totally different traces, wider traces, and it pushes you a large number within the entrance.
“However in my case, in my driving fashion, it isn’t a big-big downside. Additionally me, I am a rider that carries a variety of velocity into the nook.
“So, to illustrate that generally I would want a bit bit extra turning however it’s a particularity of the bike, that it would not destroy my manner of driving. On the finish I can battle a bit with it.”
For Bezzecchi, clearly it does “destroy” his fashion a bit. “The largest distinction is that they [fellow GP23 riders] are in a position to launch the brake in trail-braking greater than me and carry extra entry and nook velocity.
“When I attempt to do it, I am going huge or I crash.”
However Bezzecchi has additionally been more and more vocal concerning the different perpetrator on this puzzle, the one that ought to stay a priority even as soon as he switches to Aprilia.
Michelin’s rear tyre modifications for 2024 weren’t anticipated to have a transformative impact on the championship – however more and more the new-construction tyre appears to be behind all the important thing traits.
The works-spec Ducatis had been battling rear tyre chatter to start the season, however now that they’ve it below management rivals are indicating the 2024 bike is a lot better at totally exploiting the elevated grip that is all of a sudden there.
And that elevated grip is obvious – lap data are being demolished, and all of the riders are single- or double-digit seconds quicker than their reference occasions from final yr’s races. You can spend a variety of time attempting to dissect how a lot of that’s bike growth, how a lot of that’s day-to-day circumstances and the way a lot of that’s the tyre – however, actually, champion Pecco Bagnaia is amongst these pointing the finger firmly on the latter issue, and the vast majority of the obtainable proof is on his aspect.
“The brand new rear tyre is … excellent, however for me it by no means helps,” admitted Bezzecchi. “I do not need a lot grip.
“I wrestle an excessive amount of, I destroy the entrance each session [because the rear is pushing it].
“The efficiency may be very excessive however for my aspect, it is tough to make use of this additional grip.
“The brand new bike [also] has extra grip, I discover this instantly within the Valencia take a look at [last year]. However within the Valencia take a look at with the outdated tyre development I used to be third on the finish of the day. After which as quickly as I attempted the new-construction tyres in Malaysia, I began to have these issues. And I began to wrestle, and we’re struggling to search out the answer.”
It’s due to this that Bezzecchi described this yr’s Spanish Grand Prix, most likely the one really good weekend of his season, as “truthfully one in all my greatest performances to this point”.
Nevertheless it’s been an outlier. And, as The Race identified to him in an unlucky however unavoidable little bit of knife-twisting, it isn’t just like the rear tyre can be reverting any time quickly.
“I do not know if they’re attempting to make use of this tyre as a take a look at for an additional new development tyre, however anyway we now have to face this downside by means of all of the season.
“So now I am going within the field, I test the information, I attempt to examine every little thing, like I do on daily basis.”
Bezzecchi’s weekend bought higher ultimately. He was a a lot cheerier character after the dash, aided by a change to his GP23 to dial out some “stability” in favour of “agility”.
“The bike was excellent within the stability space, however was very stiff to place the bike within the corners. And for the issue that I had on the trail-braking this wasn’t useful.
“Having a greater [corner] entry, this gave me the boldness to go in a bit quicker within the corners.”
When requested by The Race whether or not this was a change that lowered the efficiency ceiling by way of the lack of the aforementioned stability, he mentioned: “To illustrate that on the bike it is at all times a compromise. You may’t have every little thing, other than some very very tough [rare] case that you’ve got every year or two in case you are fortunate.
“To illustrate that for right here I desire much less stability.”
In any other case, although, Bezzecchi made it clear that he didn’t wish to spend the remainder of the season desperately lurching from one set-up to a different and as a substitute needed to give attention to “driving over” the issues he had.
“Already in Jerez I believed it was going to be a bit simpler, however then we met once more some issues. Hopefully now we are able to… on the finish, we modified our strategy to work, we stopped transferring the bike [set-up] an excessive amount of and we tried to focus extra on the small print, extra on the driving, driving over the issues was the primary goal this weekend.
“And I believe we’ll proceed to do that on the finish of the season. We noticed that transferring quite a bit the bike was not the answer, we by no means discovered the best way to enhance the dangerous emotions that I had. So… hopefully generally is a new begin.”
In that sense, each Sachsenring races had been tentatively optimistic – he was far, however extra restricted by grid place and lack of early-lap beneficial properties than tempo, with a lot of the drawback to his Ducati friends most likely accounted for by battles with the late-braking, hard-to-pass however finally slower KTMs.
Bezzecchi appreciates the summer season break however is “very hungry” to return on the bike in Silverstone, to see whether or not he is made an actual breakthrough.
Even when he has, there isn’t a signal that he is really out of the woods. No signal that he is on the degree that he would anticipate himself to be after ending third final yr.
In 2020, when Andrea Dovizioso ought to’ve been the rider choosing up the items after Marc Marquez’s season-changing damage, there was additionally a brand new Michelin rear – and Dovizioso couldn’t make it work. There’s a sturdy case to be made that it ended his MotoGP profession.
Bezzecchi is youthful, has extra time to determine issues out and has a contract that can take him to the cusp of a brand new rules change. An extended-awaited new Michelin entrance might change his fortunes, too.
However whereas the ultimate championship results of his 2024 season will not matter a lot, he’s in no place to sit down and wait – and he appears properly conscious, too.
There are some basic questions that can must be tackled, over and over, throughout these remaining 11 rounds, lest Bezzecchi’s travails on the Ducati GP23 comply with him onto subsequent yr’s Aprilia RS-GP.
