{"id":362876,"date":"2025-12-21T16:59:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T16:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/362876\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T16:59:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T16:59:08","slug":"one-ducati-motogp-winners-surprising-memory-of-his-first-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/362876\/","title":{"rendered":"One Ducati MotoGP winner\u2019s surprising memory of his first victory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former MotoGP rider Andrea Iannone has offered a surprising memory about his maiden victory with Ducati at the 2016 Austrian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n<p>The self-styled \u2018Maniac\u2019 of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MotoGP<\/a> competed in the premier class from 2013 through to the end of 2019, serving stints with Ducati, Suzuki and Aprilia.<\/p>\n<p>Making his debut in 2013 with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/teams\/prima-pramac-yamaha\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pramac Ducati<\/a>, Andrea Iannone was promoted to the Italian brand\u2019s factory squad in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>But by the mid-point of 2016, he had already been let go by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/teams\/ducati-lenovo-team\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ducati<\/a>, who had signed Jorge Lorenzo for the following year to partner Andrea Dovizioso.<\/p>\n<p>Iannone took his sole victory in the premier class at the Austrian Grand Prix in 2016, ending a drought dating back to 2010 for Ducati.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with GPOne Iannone offered a surprising overarching memory of that day.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI remember that time, I had sex all night before the race,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI went to bed at five in the morning, I woke up, went to the circuit, set the fastest time in the warm-up and then won the race.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Iannone\u2019s career slowly declined following his departure from Ducati at the end of the 2016 season.<\/p>\n<p>His first season with Suzuki proved difficult, as he selected the wrong engine development for the Japanese brand to seal for the season.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>Suzuki\u2019s results were such that it regained the concessions it had lost in 2017 for 2018, with Iannone departing for Aprilia in 2019.<\/p>\n<p>Iannone was thrown out of the final two rounds of the 2019 season after failing a doping test during the Malaysian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n<p>He was hit with a retroactive four-year ban after losing an appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>This episode proved costly for Aprilia, who stuck by Iannone during this process, but was then left unable to sign a top talent as a replacement for 2021.<\/p>\n<p>After Iannone\u2019s ban expired, he took up a ride in World Superbikes, and competed in one final MotoGP round as a replacement rider for VR46 Ducati at the 2024 Malaysian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former MotoGP rider Andrea Iannone has offered a surprising memory about his maiden victory with Ducati at the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362877,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[111332,64,63,8456,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-362876","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-andrea-iannone","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-ducati-lenovo-team","12":"tag-motor","13":"tag-motor-sports","14":"tag-motosport","15":"tag-motosports","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}