Goatee-bearded Gigi proved not only systematic, solving both technical and management issues step by step, but also innovative. The latter ever more spectacularly.
His first season, 2014, was spent reorganizing and consolidating. Bit by bit the bike got better, and in 2016 Rossi replacement Andrea Dovizioso and new team-mate Andrea Iannone each won a race, the first since Stoner in 2010. Over the next three years Dovizioso racked up more wins, each time second overall as major challenger to the rampant Marc Marquez. But Dovizioso was second only to the fading Rossi in age and experience, and also on the downward slope.
Ducati’s strategy included supporting several teams, the most prominent of which, sponsored by Pramac, was supplied with high-grade machines for talent-grooming. The initiative brought in former Moto2 champion Pecco Bagnaia, and after two years in MotoGP he came into the 2022 as the favorite for title. After a series of unforced errors and crashes in the early season, he came back after the summer break mentally rebooted and won five of the remaining ten races, finishing on the podium on two other occasions. It was a spree of results that saw him become champion at season’s end.