“First of all, we’re all very happy with the work we’ve done so far with Diggia,\u201d Valentino Rossi <\/a>told Sky.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we started together, Diggia was on his last legs, and year after year we’ve managed to grow together, and now he’s going really strong. It’s a great satisfaction for us.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cThere’s a risk he might leave, so we’re disappointed, but we’re still happy with where we’re at.\u201d<\/p>\n Fabio di Giannantonio, Franco Morbidelli, 2026 Catalan MotoGP.<\/p>\n \u00a9\u00a0Gold and Goose<\/p>\n Rossi then stressed the importance of retaining at least one Italian rider.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to keep at least one Italian rider for next year because our team has always grown with Italian riders.<\/p>\n \u201cSo there are several options, several things to figure out. Nothing’s official yet, we’ll see.”<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Assuming Morbidelli departs, VR46\u2019s other Italian options include Rossi\u2019s brother Luca Marini<\/a>, who is expected to lose his factory Honda seat, plus Ducati WorldSBK title leader Nicolo Bulega<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, Sky suggests that VR46 Academy Moto2 rider Celestino Vietti is also a possibility. Vietti tested the team’s Ducati at Valencia last November.<\/p>\n Who will win the 2026 Catalan MotoGP race?Pedro Acosta<\/p>\n 3% (3 votes)<\/p>\n Marco Bezzecchi<\/p>\n 22% (21 votes)<\/p>\n Pecco Bagnaia<\/p>\n 4% (4 votes)<\/p>\n Fabio di Giannantonio<\/p>\n 1% (1 vote)<\/p>\n Jorge Martin<\/p>\n 39% (37 votes)<\/p>\n Alex Marquez<\/p>\n 23% (22 votes)<\/p>\n Ai Ogura<\/p>\n 4% (4 votes)<\/p>\n Other (tell us in the comments section)<\/p>\n 2% (2 votes)<\/p>\n Total votes: 94<\/p>\n Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Valentino Rossi was trackside at Catalunya on Friday, watching his VR46 riders Fabio di Giannantonio and Franco Morbidelli…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,15118,12370,23688,9399,806,805,803,804,6909,15119,85,20420],"class_list":["post-673470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fabio-di-giannantonio","tag-fermin-aldeguer","tag-franco-morbidelli","tag-luca-marini","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-nicolo-bulega","tag-pertamina-enduro-vr46-racing","tag-sports","tag-valentino-rossi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673470","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=673470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Fabio](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/gng_1313848_hires_1600x900.jpg\")
<\/p>\n