The Ducati Factory team’s 1-2 finish at the 2024 World Championship final round weekend – this time Racing for (rather than at) Valencia – with the riders World Championship still to be decided was only the second time this has occurred with Ducati since MotoGP was born in 2002. The first was at Valencia in 2006, with the pair of Factory GP6s also 1-2, that season being the highlight year to date for Ducati at the time.

Ducati’s team entry into MotoGP had long been expected and once they announced their intention to compete there had been speculation that they would try to enter with a ‘super Superbike ‘using their very successful world Superbike twin cylinder technology. Instead of that however, Ducati board member Piero Ferrari, who had an engineering consultancy called High Performance Engineering in Modena, asked a pair of his engineers to assist in the creation of a four cylinder MotoGP power plant using the very latest Formula One technology.

• The recommendation from this group of engineers was to use pneumatic valve gear, just as most Formula One engines did and still do; Ducati however stuck to its guns and insisted on using its preferred Desmodromic valve operation as that direct connection with its road bikes was a unique marketing aspect.

  MotoGP‘s first set of rules allowed engines up to 990cc; you could have any engine layout ranging from twins to sixes with equalisation carried out via different minimum weight limits. Ducati chose to develop a 90 degree L4 displacing 989cc. This fits quite nicely with the working theory that Ducati’s original MotoGP engine has close links to the last Formula One V12 Engine, the 3-litre unit built by Ferrari, the 1995 044/1. This shares its 86 millimetre bore with the Desmosedici, the motorcycle having a slightly shorter stroke to stay within the smaller capacity requirement. Both engines are 4 valves per cylinder.

  Ducati’s post 2000 twin cylinder ’Testastretta’ (Narrow head) cylinder heads also had a close Ferrari connection. In the early nineties Ferrari had developed an experimental 5 valve Desmodromic cylinder head for their V12 Formula one engines and this had quite a few fundamental improvements to the then current Ducati design. The original Ducati design had both opening and closing rockers situated between the valves forcing the designers to use a wide 40 degree included angle which in turn gave a sub optimal combustion chamber.

  Ducati recruited retiring Ferrari Engineer Angelino Marchetti to design a new cylinder head and while being bigger and with only four valves, it had an uncanny resemblance to the earlier Ferrari F1 head with the same revised rocker positions and included a valve angle at a far more efficient 25 degrees.

  It resulted in immediate power increase of at least 10%, so when it came time to create the Desmosedici Grand Prix engine, this was the design used.

However, in motorcycling the quality of the power delivery is arguably more important than the peak power number, resulting in Ducati winning many World Superbike titles with their twin cylinder engines on this basis. Ducati’s choices with the Desmosedici GP engine however were less subtle; power was to be as good as possible, so right from the start the 2003 D16 was immediately the fastest bike in a straight line, to the extent that it didn’t need a slipstream to overtake, it simply drove past the opposition, as proven in the debut race’s 15th place start to 1st by Capirossi.

It is usual to take several years to get a new racing bike ‘right’ but the 2003 bike delighted with a brilliant win at Catalunya after just six Grands Prix and runner up spot in the Constructor’s World Championship.

For 2004 there was a completely new bike with even more power, initially still with the ‘screamer’ engine. Furthermore, the arrival of the strange sounding crossplane crankshaft equipped Yamaha ushered in new thoughts on power delivery and grip. Ducati’s response was the thunderous ‘Twin pulse’ crankshaft design that better mimicked the power delivery of Ducati’s big twin superbikes, making the bike more rider friendly. Progress was also made on developing workable traction control.

For 2005 Ducati changed to Bridgestone tyres; differentiation was the tactical reason, as if Michelin and Dunlop were having a bad weekend; anyone using Bridgestone’s stood a better chance. Bridgestone had also contracted to develop custom built tyres for Ducati. The first half of the year was lost to tyre development, as different tyre profiles, constructions and compounds were tried. By the Japanese Grand Prix at Motegi, however, Bridgestone were confident that they had the stronger tyre, as confirmed in the race.

• It obviously helped that Bridgestone is a Japanese company and at Motegi they had the advantage of being able to manufacture tyres just a few days before the weekend, once the predicted temperatures and weather was known. This was an aspect of the competition that meant Michelin normally had the upper hand in Europe, where they made race tyres overnight on Saturday, following rider feedback and almost certain weather forecasts. 2005 also saw a reduction in the fuel allowed for a race, the limit dropping from 24 litres to 22. 

  This was a particularly difficult problem for Ducati to surmount, as they clearly had the highest revving engine and most likely the highest fuel consumption.

2006, however, saw real progress; there was the more sophisticated GP6 frame and a careful redesign included additional bracing of the steering head. Previous frames had allowed the front wheel to move backwards under heavy braking with the tyre occasionally marking the cylinder head carbon cover. The new frame stopped most of that problem and also allowed the bike to be dropped further down the fork legs if necessary, for an optimal set up.

The engine was reworked to reduce internal friction, improving both power output and reducing fuel consumption. The cooling system was also redesigned for improved efficiency, a noticeable side effect of this was an addition to the morning warm up ritual with the mechanics being seen carefully bleeding the system as the bike warmed up.

Ducati had finally got themselves into a position where the bike was capable of winning and all it needed was for Bridgestone to get the tyres right. They were very competitive in the early part of the year, with Loris Capirossi winning at Jerez and leaving the Italian Grand Prix at Mugello in the lead of the championship. 

A dramatic crash at Catalunya took both Ducati riders out and it was several rounds before both were fully fit again, but once fit Capirossi then won both the Brno and Motegi races while stand in rider Troy Bayliss won at Valencia to bring Ducati’s tally of Grand Prix wins to four during the 2006 MotoGP season, Ducati’s best result to date and a glimpse of what could, or indeed should, have been….