Franco Morbidelli, Fabio di Giannantonio split by one point ahead of Portimao MotoGP

Franco Morbidelli takes a slender one-point lead over VR46 Ducati team-mate Fabio di Giannantonio into this weekend’s penultimate round of the 2025 MotoGP season at Portimao.

Morbidelli, riding last year’s GP24, took two early grand prix podiums this season, while di Giannantonio has claimed three, the most recent at Phillip Island last month.

Diggia, on the factory-spec GP25, has suffered five Sunday non-scores, while Morbidelli has four, including two non-starts due to injury.

After struggling with the same rear-grip issues as Francesco Bagnaia in Australia, Morbidelli bounced back with a pair of fourth places at Sepang and is aiming to replicate his 2020 Yamaha podium at Portimao.

“It’s going to be a tough weekend - Portimão is a very demanding track. We’ll see how it goes,” Morbidelli said.

“We’re coming from a very positive weekend in Sepang, where we completely turned around the negative feeling from Australia, so I’m really happy.

“I’m also very satisfied with the level we’ve reached and are showing right now. We’re super motivated for this season finale.”

Regardless of the outcome, this season will be Morbidelli’s most competitive MotoGP campaign since finishing runner-up to Joan Mir in 2020.

For di Giannantonio, it’s a career-best MotoGP season, already guaranteeing him a higher finish than twelfth overall in 2023, when he claimed a maiden win with Gresini.

“I hope we can start this weekend even closer to the ideal setup so we can fight for the podium,” di Giannantonio said.

“We’ve already shown on several occasions that when we have the right feeling, we’re capable of battling for the top three and even for victory.

“So, the goal for Portimao is to push from the very beginning to stay in the leading positions.”

The Morbidelli-di Giannantonio contest is the closest battle in the top ten, although Johann Zarco is also one point clear of Brad Binder for eleventh place.