Bezzecchi: Portimao “complicated, demanding, fun” | Di Giannantonio: “top five can be a goal”

After a ‘very difficult’ MotoGP season opener in Qatar, Marco Bezzecchi heads for round two in Portimao hoping at least reduce his corner entry woes.

Third in last year’s world championship, Bezzecchi dropped towards the tail end of the Ducati rider rankings with two points in Qatar, finishing 11th and 14th in the Sprint and Grand Prix respectively.

That put Bezzecchi ahead of only Pramac’s Franco Morbidelli, who missed all of pre-season testing.

“Very difficult weekend for me,” Bezzecchi said of Qatar. “Hopefully in Portimao we can find a better base from the Friday.

“I'm trying to look at the data, understand why I'm missing some speed. The problem is that I'm not able to do at the moment what [the other GP23 riders] are doing.

“I have no confidence on the front to release the brakes,” he explained. “The bike is not turning and because of this I lose corner speed. So I either open the throttle late, or I go inside the corner too slow. Because if not, the bike is not turning.”

Team-mate Fabio di Giannantonio, like the Marquez brothers, has the same spec GP23 as Bezzecchi but hasn’t suffered the same issues.

“We speak sometimes when we have lunch together and he explained to me the problems he has, but it's strange because I never had his problems,” Diggia said. “So it’s tough also for me to understand.

“I am sorry for him to have these problems and also because I don't know how to help him, somehow. But I'm sure that with his strong side of the box, with this strong team, sooner or later - I think soon - they can fix everything.”

Bezzecchi at least has good memories of Portimao from last year, when he finished third in the grand prix.

“Portimao is truly one of the most beautiful tracks on the calendar. Complicated, physically demanding, but at the same time very fun,” said Bez. “The goal is to get closer to the fastest group and have fun on this particular [unique] track.”

Despite falling hard in the Qatar Sprint, injuring his leg and heavily damaging the bike, di Giannantonio rebounded with seventh on his VR46 debut in the grand prix.

“The weekend in Qatar was overall positive. We had some problems, but this didn't stop us from being fast and competitive,” di Giannantonio said.

“We will continue to work hard with the team here in Portimao too, a beautiful and wonderful track. A real roller coaster, very demanding also on a physical side.

“We have not to rush, we are doing well, we need to continue to grow, the top five can be a goal…”