Enea Bastianini: Ducati GP21 faster, easier, more forgiving

Enea Bastianini is switching teams and jumping two years of Ducati development as he joins the new Gresini project for the 2022 MotoGP season.

The Italian turned heads by taking a two-year-old Desmosedici to podium finishes for Avintia in his rookie season, spectacularly carving his way through to third places at Misano from just 12th and 16th on the grid!

"In the last part of the season we did two podiums and I thought, 'okay, I can be competitive also in MotoGP'," said the former Moto2 world champion. "I learned a lot and now I have to be more constant during all the season."

Aiding that quest will be access to the GP21, a bike that finished second in the world championship with Francesco Bagnaia and also won races for Jack Miller and Jorge Martin.

"From the start my feeling was better with the '21 bike and the DNA of Ducati is incredible for me," Bastianini said. "Also in the middle of the corner you can do more speed [on the GP21] and this is important to save the tyres better in the race… But I think this is not my biggest problem!"

Bastianini's biggest problem was clearly qualifying, having started all but one race outside of the top ten and been ninth on the grid in the other.

"My qualifying last year was a disaster!" he smiled. "But now with this bike, for me it will be easier to do a faster lap in qualifying.

"I have tried the '21 bike only in one track, Jerez, but from the start I was riding more easy, more relaxed and also when you push you can do some errors and at the end not lose a lot of time. This is important.

"Also I felt more power under braking, I can brake more later with respect to the '19, and also had less movement and for the qualifying this is a [help].

Rookie team-mate Fabio di Giannantonio will also race with a GP21 this season.