Ducati MotoGP domination in Thailand: Why is it happening?

Ducati’s season of dominance continued on Saturday at the 2024 MotoGP Thailand Grand Prix as it occupied the top eight places in the sprint.

After locking out the top six spots in the Australian GP last weekend to become the first manufacturer to do that since Honda in 1997, Ducati tightened its grip on the 2024 grid on Saturday at Buriram.

With Enea Bastianini winning ahead of Jorge Martin and Francesco Bagnaia, it enjoyed a podium lockout on Saturday in the sprint.

But it went even further than that, with all eight of its riders locking out the top eight places, with Marc Marquez in fourth followed by Alex Marquez, Franco Morbidelli, Marco Bezzecchi and Fabio Di Giannantonio.

This is the first time that a manufacturer has done this in any capacity since Honda in Barcelona in 1996.

The first non-Ducati rider was KTM’s Brad Binder, who scored a solitary point in ninth, but was 13.692s away from the win and two seconds away from Di Giannantonio at the end of the Ducati train.

From Binder’s perspective, he has no hope of sticking with any of the Desmosedicis once grip disappears on his RC16.

“Well, I can fight with them with fresh tyres,” he said.

“But the second the grip goes away I don’t have the tools to do anything anymore.

“It was a little bit tricky. I really wanted to get involved in that Ducati fight, but it’s the same last week.

“Anyway, we have a good opportunity tomorrow to try to figure things out and make another step forward, and let’s keep fighting and see what we can do.”

Pedro Acosta in recent rounds has been the only rider to hold a candle to the leading Ducatis in terms of pace, with the Tech3 rookie inside the top five in the early laps before crashing.

His explanation for Ducati’s dominance is simply its strength in numbers and the fact the “average level of riding is quite high” for those riders.

“Well, having eight bikes,” Acosta replied when asked where Ducati is making the difference.

“It makes sense, because we have manufacturers that have only two [bikes].

“We [KTM] have four. For this, it makes a lot of sense [why Ducati is so strong].

“Also, the average level they have of riding is quite high.

“But the thing that you have from eight [bikes], you have six guys who can go fast, which is the case, for example, the level of everything arrives faster to a top level.

“We are always in delay. For this, this makes them strong because at the end they have much more info than anyone else.”