{"id":666005,"date":"2026-05-12T12:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T12:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/666005\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T12:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T12:44:08","slug":"ducatis-2026-motogp-bike-great-but-not-enough-to-beat-aprilia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/666005\/","title":{"rendered":"Ducati\u2019s 2026 MotoGP bike \u201cgreat\u201d, but \u201cnot enough\u201d to beat Aprilia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>VR46 MotoGP rider Fabio Di Giannantonio says the GP26 is \u201cgreat\u201d, but \u201cnot enough\u201d to beat the Aprilia right now following the French Grand Prix.<\/p>\n<p>Ducati looked to have made a significant step during the Spanish Grand Prix weekend, with Alex Marquez winning the main race and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/racer\/995149\/fabio-di-giannantonio\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Fabio Di Giannantonio<\/a> third.<\/p>\n<p>The post-race test also appeared to yield positive progress in the development of the GP26, with Pecco Bagnaia then leading a Ducati 1-2 in qualifying in France last weekend.<\/p>\n<p>But Ducati ultimately came away with a best of fourth in the French Grand Prix, with Bagnaia crashing out of the podium places and Di Giannantonio left to pick up the pieces for the brand.<\/p>\n<p>It came as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/teams\/aprilia-racing\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Aprilia<\/a> celebrated its first 1-2-3, with Jorge Martin beating team-mate Marco Bezzecchi and Trackhouse rider Ai Ogura.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>Aprilia \u201con another level\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Di Giannantonio, who remains Ducati\u2019s leading rider in the standings, has been its most consistent campaigner in 2026 so far.<\/p>\n<p>Analysing where the GP26 stacks up against the Aprilia, the Italian admits the RS-GP is \u201con another level\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDifficult to say at the moment, because it seems that Aprilia is doing an amazing job,\u201d he told the official MotoGP website.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey are on another level. I think we have to work a lot with Ducati to improve our bike.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think we arrive in a moment where our package is great, but it\u2019s not enough to beat them.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, for sure, it will be important weeks to try to analyse, work, understand what we can bring to improve our bike.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with Sky Italy, Di Giannantonio was a little more critical of the situation, noting: \u201cThe Aprilias are scary. Our front end, however, never does what we want.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe&#8217;re short-stacked; if we improve the front, we lose something at the back, and vice versa.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/news\/1094830\/1\/fabio-di-giannantonio-makes-2027-motogp-team-decision\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Di Giannantonio stole headlines over the Le Mans weekend<\/a> after reports emerged that has agreed a deal to join KTM next year.<\/p>\n<p>He heads to this weekend\u2019s Catalan Grand Prix third in the rankings, albeit 44 points adrift of championship leader Bezzecchi.<\/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":"VR46 MotoGP rider Fabio Di Giannantonio says the GP26 is \u201cgreat\u201d, but \u201cnot enough\u201d to beat the Aprilia&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":666006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[10669,64,63,15118,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-666005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-aprilia-racing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fabio-di-giannantonio","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666005","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=666005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}