Fabio di Giannantonio: “Bittersweet, maybe we could fight Pecco”
“I go home without a trophy, I'm angry about that!”
Fabio di Giannantonio matched his season-best result with fourth place in the Australian MotoGP, his penultimate event before heading for shoulder surgery.
The VR46 rider hailed Phillip Island as perhaps his best race of the year.
However, he couldn’t help wondering if the 2.8s gap to Francesco Bagnaia and a podium might have been bridged with better qualifying and more suitable engine maps.
Fortunate to avoid injury when he was struck by debris from team-mate Marco Bezzecchi’s Saturday clash with Maverick Vinales, Diggia rose from twelfth on the grid to ninth on the opening lap of he grand prix.
The Italian then spent much of the race embroiled in a big battle with Enea Bastianini, Maverick Vinales and Brad Binder.
Once he had switched back to his original engine map, di Giannantonio charged past all of them, setting his best lap of the race on the penultimate lap.
But Bagnaia and a podium remained out of reach.
“I'm super happy [but] honestly, a bittersweet feeling,” said di Giannantonio, who was 12.997s behind fellow GP23 rider and race winner Marc Marquez.
“Because I've done an amazing race, maybe our best race of the year so far, but with a better position on the grid, maybe we could fight Pecco for the podium, because the pace was not that different.
“Yesterday too, I felt that I had the rhythm and the level to do a good job. So really happy. But also, I really wanted a trophy.
“I go home without a trophy, I'm angry about that!”
Explaining what happened with the engine maps, di Giannantonio said:
“We planned to use all the maps that we had, but when I switched to the other maps, the bike was just going slower. It was not necessary to switch maps.
“So once I came back in the right map, the bike was working well again, and I was able to make my rhythm, which I knew I could do.
“So at the end, I was really, really fast.
“Also for that, maybe without changing maps, I could be much faster and maybe try to catch Pecco at the end.
“But we have to be happy. We have to see all the positives, that after the injury we made our best performance of the year, so it means that we are back in the top level, even if the shoulder is not 100%.”
The #49 will ride his final MotoGP laps of the year at Buriram this weekend, meaning he will miss out on the Malaysian and Valencian rounds as well as the Valencia post-race test.
“It's true that it will not be a full GP25 bike [at the Valencia test], but it's a pity that I cannot try the new bike,” di Giannantonio said.
“A pity also to not do the next races, because when you do this kind of performance you don't want to stop.
“But also you have to be clever and you have to accept what the future holds for us.”
Team-mate Bezzecchi was second in the early stages, dropped to seventh after a long lap penalty, then spent the rest of the race in last place after remounting from a fall.
di Giannantonio is presently ninth in the standings, two places and 16 points ahead of Bezzecchi.
After surgery, the Qatar 2023 winner will make his MotoGP comeback at next year's Sepang pre-season test.
VR46 is yet to announce di Giannantonio's replacement for the last two rounds, with WorldSBK names such as Andrea Iannone, Danilo Petrucci and Nicola Bulega as well as Ducati test rider Michele Pirro among the list of rumoured candidates.
