But that has changed this season, with a number of Ducati riders complaining of poor starts.<\/p>\n
![\"Pecco](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/gng_1318204_hires_1600x900.jpg\")
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Pecco Bagnaia, 2026 Italian MotoGP.<\/p>\n
\u00a9\u00a0Gold and Goose<\/p>\n
Pecco Bagnaia<\/a> had a poor launch during the sprint, which sent him down the pack, while Franco Morbidelli<\/a>\u2019s VR46 MotoGP team-mate Fabio Di Giannantonio<\/a> has regularly suffered bad starts.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cNow, as soon as I start to release the clutch, releasing the clutch very slowly, it starts to wheely and it never comes back,\u201d Bagnaia explained at Mugello.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, it\u2019s difficult to change something because if I release the clutch like I want, the bike wheelies and I always go backwards at the start.<\/p>\n \u201cToday, in the race, I started very slow on the clutch, but as soon as I arrive to 80% of releasing, it starts wheelying. Until I put second gear, it didn\u2019t come back.\u201d<\/p>\n Morbidelli also had a poor launch on Sunday at the Italian Grand Prix, which has also been a problem for him this season.<\/p>\n The VR46 rider notes that the GP24 he rode last year \u201cwas like a rocket\u201d off the line, but that trait didn\u2019t carry forward into the GP25 he is on, and seemingly persists on the GP26.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n He explained that the Ducati now is so hard to get \u201ceverything in the right window\u201d to make a good start.<\/p>\n Franco Morbidelli, VR46 Ducati, 2026 Italian MotoGP<\/p>\n \u00a9\u00a0Gold and Goose<\/p>\n \u201cI think I said yesterday [Saturday] the GP24 was like a rocket, last year’s bike,\u201d Morbidelli, who was 14th in the race, said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis year’s bike, we are getting a lot wheelie, and it was quite difficult to get off the line.<\/p>\n \u201cMany things are difficult on this bike, the problem is to put it in the right window.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cIf everything is in the right window, then you make rocket starts also on this bike.<\/p>\n \u201cIf things are on point, you can make great performances on this bike.\u201d<\/p>\n Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VR46 MotoGP rider Franco Morbidelli says the Ducati is a hard bike to start well on because of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":708859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,23688,806,805,803,804,15119,85],"class_list":["post-708858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-franco-morbidelli","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-pertamina-enduro-vr46-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708858","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=708858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/708859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Franco](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/gng_1317176_hires.jpg\")
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