A Brno weekend to forget: Fabio Di Giannantonio has shown too few highlights in the first half of the season – VR46 is also not as good overall as Gresini
The return to Brno was a complete success and a huge celebration! After a rainy Friday, 81,000 visitors came to the race track on Saturday and 95,700 on Sunday. It is one of the most beautiful tracks on the calendar and the old-school charm of the forest has something special.
The unlucky rider of the season is clearly Joan Mir. Either he crashes because he wants to get more out of the Honda than is possible, or he gets caught up in accidents through no fault of his own. We really hope he has a smooth weekend for once!
In my opinion, there are two riders who come into question for our traditional Monday column: Alex Marquez and Fabio Di Giannantonio. Let’s start with Alex Marquez. With a 120-point deficit, it’s clear that his slim chance of winning the world championship against Marc is finally over.
Things haven’t been going well for the Gresini rider since Assen. When he finished second behind his brother in the sprint there, he made it very clear that turn 5 is not a place to overtake. He had never thought of attacking Marc there.
In the Grand Prix, he then tried to force his way past Pedro Acosta there. After two collisions, he came off worse and paid for this maneuver with a crash and an injury to his left hand.
At the Sachsenring, he only finished second in the Grand Prix because Di Giannantonio and Marco Bezzecchi crashed in front of him. The Brno weekend was now completely forgettable for Alex Marquez – zero points in both races.
He messed up the start in the sprint, crashed in the early stages of the Grand Prix and also took out the unlucky Mir. For this, he received a long-lap penalty for Sunday’s race in Spielberg. The points gap to Marc is likely to widen there.
“I lost my concentration a little on certain things and just made mistakes,” Alex Marquez admitted openly after Brno. “We have to improve for the future. And yes, it’s an experience, but these things can happen.”
As I said, he’s been off the pace since Sunday in Assen. However, I must praise Alex Marquez for a fantastic first half of the season. He is by far the most positive surprise so far.
As he himself has often emphasized, second place behind Marc is like a victory at the moment. That’s true, because Marc is by far the best rider in the field, as he impressively demonstrates every weekend.
As the saying goes, when two people argue, the third one rejoices. When I expected a big duel between Marc Marquez and Francesco Bagnaia in the winter, I didn’t think Alex would be the third rider to get involved.
Di Giannantonio isn’t making the most of his potential
Instead, I had Fabio Di Giannantonio on my list. After all, he has the same bike as the Ducati factory team, and VR46 has even more support from Ducati this year – even more than the Gresini team.
But then “Diggia” crashed during winter testing after a wheelie and injured himself. That obviously affected his further preparation program. These are things that shouldn’t happen to a full-time professional who has been handed a great opportunity on a silver platter.
Two third places in Grands Prix are simply not enough given the Italian’s basic prerequisites. It’s clear that he can’t compete with Marc Marquez. But he needs to be consistently at the front to fight for podium places and with Alex Marquez.
That’s just not the case. Nothing worked for “Diggia” in Brno – he crashed in the sprint and only finished 16th in the Grand Prix. Sure, everyone can have a really bad weekend once in a while. But this was already a low point.
The Italian is well aware of this himself: “So let’s get straight to the point. I don’t want to make excuses or anything like that. Of course, my feeling with the bike wasn’t fantastic. Well, I take full responsibility because a rider is the leader of the team.“
”He’s the one who takes in information and passes it on to set the direction for the bike’s setup. And I think I’ve been much more precise in my career than I was this weekend.”
“Maybe it was everything that happened this weekend – the conditions, everything. But I just want to say: it’s my responsibility that we didn’t have the package to fight at the front today and overall this weekend.”
I think these are strong statements, which I find very good in principle. Di Giannantonio always speaks openly about everything – regardless of whether things went well or badly. There are never any PR platitudes, he speaks plainly. You have to give him credit for that.
Of course, “Diggia” can show highlights and win races from time to time. But he’s not at the level of the Marquez brothers. At the Sachsenring, he was clearly the second-fastest rider and threw away second place with a crash.
But there’s another thing that’s been on my mind and I don’t have a clear answer to yet: how good is the VR46 team actually? Because the Gresini team has simply been better in recent years, despite having fewer resources.
That’s why I wonder whether Valentino Rossi shouldn’t also make changes to the team structure for the future and bring in some new personnel. After all, his expectations are higher than what we are currently seeing from the VR46 team.
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