Ducati: Nobody at fault in Lorenzo split

Ducati Corse CEO Claudio Domenicali says Jorge Lorenzo’s two-year stay at the Italian team was worthwhile in investment and development despite a premature split.

Lorenzo made headlines last year when he was axed from Ducati before being picked up by Repsol Honda to become reigning MotoGP world champion Marc Marquez’s new team-mate and replace Dani Pedrosa.

In 2016, Lorenzo reportedly signed a two-year Ducati deal worth close to €30 million to make him one of the highest-paid MotoGP riders on the grid. But after struggling to produce the desired results it was announced he would be leaving the team and the end of 2018 – ironically going on to claim his breakthrough maiden Ducati win one week later.

Despite speculation of a pivotal falling out between Domenicali and Lorenzo, the Ducati chief feels the team’s relationship with the Spaniard “was fantastic but things did not go exactly as planned”.

“We learnt as a team a lot on the technical side and on the human side. Life is like this, a story, people met and we had a very positive relationship,” Domenicali said during Ducati’s 2019 MotoGP team launch. “The relationship with Lorenzo was fantastic but things did not go exactly as planned timing wise which was not anyone’s fault, it was not Jorge’s fault, it is what it is.

“We think we are here today after two very positive years together, we won a lot of races and improved the bike. Now we are look to the future in a very positive way. We made a lot of good and bad, we will learn, and we look towards 2019 in a strong way.”

With renewed focus on the 2019 MotoGP world titles, and ending Ducati’s championship drought stretching back 12 years, Domencali is eager to see the year-on-year improvements continue after consecutive runner-up finishes for Andrea Dovizioso in the riders’ standings.

Dovizioso welcomes Danlio Petrucci into the factory Ducati fold for 2019 following Lorenzo's exit.

“Last year was a fine year of continued progression that started from 2013 and we’ve improved the level of our package every year with the people we have,” he said. “Riders, engineers and the company. I think last year and this winter we’ve gone through positive development.

“Last year we saw the bike was very fast in almost every race track which was not typical. Very often in the past we had a package which was super strong at some tracks but then at others suffer much more.

“We have made improvements and a positive start but there is always a but because it depends very much on what the competitors have done. We race against giants and we are very respectful of what they’ve done. We’ll wait and see until the first races of the season.”