Rinaldi on Ducati dominance - ‘It’s not just the bikes’

Michael Rinaldi kicked of 2023 with a double podium for Ducati as part of two one-two results for Aruba.it on Sunday alongside reigning WorldSBK Champion Alvaro Bautista, who scored a cleap sweep of victories.

Axel Bassani and Philipp Oettl made it four Ducati riders in the top five at Phillip Island’s season opener, on a near disaster day for the likes of Jonathan Rea and Toprak Razgatlioglu. What does this mean for Rinaldi, and his prospects as a factory rider?

“I’m really happy about the work that Ducati is doing in MotoGP and Superbike,” he said, expanding the franchise. “It shows the game plan of Panigale is working,” he continued, ominously for some. “I have to watch the race but I think Lowes took out Toprak. They crashed. So, you take these two out and it’s not the true story but for sure, we see that concerning the times, Ducati is not that bad. The opposite side is when there is a lot of grip, we are struggling a little bit. So everybody has his card, and maybe this track helps us a little bit to work better with the tyre.”

When confronted with the question of why the Ducati is performing better than the Yamaha and Kawasaki, the recent traditional rivals, Rinaldi pointed out what he saw as some facts about the bikes he is racing against.

“I think that now there’s a lot of ‘clicks’ saying that Ducati is the best bike. I think that the difference is that the bike for sure is strong, but why you don’t say the pole position was made from a Yamaha? Why you don’t say that during the test, we may be first a few times? In the test, we were first in Portimao - in Jerez not.”

When asked about why Bautista was the fastest rider by some margin, Rinaldi said, “I know this because we are working in a different way. You