2024 a “great year” despite lack of results on Ducati GP24

Franco Morbidelli has described 2024 as a “great year” for him despite failing to score a grand prix podium on what was widely regarded as the best bike on the grid.

After two torrid seasons at Yamaha’s factory team, Morbidelli moved to Pramac this year alongside Jorge Martin, earning the opportunity to ride Ducati’s latest GP24 prototype.

However, a crash during training in January forced him to miss all official pre-season tests, meaning he didn’t get to ride his new bike until the opening round of the season in Qatar in March.

After gradually acclimatising to the Desmosedici, the Italian began to achieve promising results and went into the summer break with a fifth-place finish in the German Grand Prix.

But he was never quite able to extract the pace of the bike that powered his team-mate Jorge Martin to the title, ending up a distant ninth in the championship behind all other GP24 runners.

But Morbidelli thinks it is important to put his struggles at Yamaha into context while analysing his campaign, suggesting he needs to take just one step in order to fight for victories for the first time since 2020.

“Overall [it] was a great year for the whole team. It was a great year for me as well,” he said.

“I came back to fight for top spots and I’m really close to top spots. I’m looking forward to making these last steps that allow me to get there and catch wins and podiums as I would like to – and consistently, as I would like to. 

“But overall it was a great year for the team and me as well. We did a great comeback from the beginning of the year, from past two years. It’s a positive season.

He added: “I lost some points [at the beginning of the year]. I think I could have fought for P5 in the championship. Not P4, not P3, neither P2 or P1. But P5, I could have fought for it.”

Morbidelli showed flashes of pace during the year, but wasn’t quite able to convert his inherent speed into results. For instance, he rode spectacularly in the wet in Buriram to rise from 11th to sixth early on, only to then pick up a penalty for forcing his former team-mate Fabio Quartararo into a crash.

The 29-year-old, who will move to VR46 in 2025, explained there are still some areas he needs to work on in order to perform at his potential.

“I didn’t manage to win this year. I got a podium just once in a sprint race [at Misano]. For sure there is room to improve. There are still things to manage well,” he said.

“Also because it always seems like I’ve got the speed but [there was] always something missing in a race.

“Probably I need to work better with the team, work better for arranging the setting and things for the race.”