Fabio Di Giannantonio: “Many hours with pain” but “it’s difficult to stop”

Although Fabio di Giannantonio’s season ended in Thailand as he heads back to Europe for surgery on the shoulder he injured in practice for the Austrian Grand Prix in August, the Italian was satisfied with how his third MotoGP campaign has concluded, with fourth-place finishes in both Australia and Thailand.

“I’m super-happy because I think we’ve done an amazing job,” Di Giannantonio said after the Thai Grand Prix.

“These seven races in two months have been really tough for the shoulder, we’ve done an amazing job at home.

“It’s been tough, believe me, it’s been really tough to be that competitive with that level, I had to go through many hours of physio, many hours with pain, many practices with pain.

“This, I think, has been a fantastic end of the season because we finished the season with two different tracks, with two different conditions, with two fourth places that is an amazing achievement.

“So, we have to be super-happy because, in the championship, we are eighth at the moment, with a lot of points, and in front of many top riders. So, I think we’ve done an amazing job.”

Following the Sprint on Saturday, in which he finished eighth, Di Giannantonio was concerned for his physical condition for the full-distance Grand Prix on Sunday, but said that the wet weather helped make it slightly less demanding.

“It [wet conditions] was a huge help,” he said. “Honestly, I was quite worried for the long race, because all the weekend I was struggling a lot because of the right corners.

“So, it’s been a huge help to ride in the wet, even if it was much more risky for me because if I was crashing on the shoulder it would be much worse for me.

“At the end, it still turned out good, so we have to be happy for this — a bit of luck.”

Although he feels he’s making the right choice to stop, Di Giannantonio admitted he was finding it difficult to accept his decision to finish his season early while in such strong form at the moment.

“Here it’s super-difficult,” he said. “Now, it’s difficult to stop. I did all the laps saying ‘I don’t want to stop’, but just to be clever and it’s the right thing to do we decide [to stop].

“It will be good to stop, make the surgery, recover, and try to be 100 per cent for next year.”

On the other hand, Di Giannantonio ending his season now means that he at least goes into the winter, and his recovery from the shoulder surgery, knowing he has ended the 2024 season in competitive form.

“It will be important, because arriving to this level, you know you have it, so you know perfectly now that the steps that you will make are just to improve this level,” he said.

“For sure, it will be a long journey, we cannot expect to be fast like now in the first test of [2025], we have to keep calm.

“But I think it will be the right thing to do, and the right journey to be in a really good level next year and better than now.”

Stronger at the end

Across the second half of the race, Di Giannantonio reduced his deficit to race leader Francesco Bagnaia by around six seconds.

The Italian said he struggled with a poor feeling with the bike at the start of the race, but as the race went on he improved.

“The feeling at the beginning of the race was really bad, honestly,” he said.

“It was sliding, the front, the rear, so I couldn’t get the rhythm. For this, also I was three seconds slower compared to me of this morning, so I was really struggling.

“So, the only thing that I thought was ‘Keep calm for some laps, let’s try to get the rhythm step-by-step’, and once I got it I was like a rocket.

“I knew that I could have a really strong pace in the wet, and at the end we show it. It’s also racing, it’s like this.

“For sure we have to analyse, to understand, to don’t repeat this little mistake for next year. But, at the end, it’s a super-positive race.”