#which is going to send you on a bit of a collision course with dall'igna yeah

[batsplat]

hello!!! i wanted to ask you something, i just saw video of gigi and when they asked him about how he'd define dovi he said fast after thinking about it for too long 😭 so i was wondering if you had some post about the dovi/ducati relationship?

( https://www.instagram.com/reel/C_hrfEKojxd/?igsh=MWtmMXQwYnRlbnF2dQ== )

thank you so much anyways!!! i love your blog 💕💕

(link) can I just say, I think everyone should go watch this because if anything anon is underselling just how long dall'igna pauses. I actually burst out laughing, it's comical

anyway, don't have a post about this specifically but it's an easy one to answer - they HATE each other. quite infamously so, like this was a common bit of paddock gossip for years and years. an open secret that they could barely be in the same room as each other. like here from 2020:

and from a little later in 2020, in the context of dovi leaving ducati:

not ideal, is it. they frequently clashed about development direction... plus dall'igna was a big jorge advocate within ducati, which dovi was unsurprisingly not massively into. important bit of context that dall'igna and jorge had already worked with each other back in their aprilia days. dall'igna's always been a jorge fan, something you would maybe not say is true of dovi. essentially dovi persistently thought ducati weren't listening enough to him and dall'igna persistently thought ducati could be performing better with a better rider. dall'igna never felt like dovi was riding the bike the way it was supposed to be ridden, and eventually the mounting tensions caused an irreconcilable rift between the pair of them

at the latest by 2019, things had definitely soured - with reports around the time of sachsenring of strained relations within the ducati camp, and dovi increasingly publicly critical of ducati:

'did not need to explicitly mention' like that's how you can tell everyone knew they had beef lol

luckily for us, however, we don't even have to rely on rumours here - because dovi went for a bit of a scorched earth approach in early 2021 once him and ducati had parted ways. actually went on the record with a lot of his dall'igna criticisms, all timer interview quite frankly. first he says he hasn't spoken properly with dall'igna for years -

- and is also kind enough to confirm that jorge's arrival specifically soured things lol. then he talks about how much power dall'igna has within ducati:

do we think. do we think from the tone. do we think from the tone that dovi maybe doesn't think ducati made the right choice in going for jorge

goes on to say that the split was always going to happen due to a particularly acrimonious meeting in the middle of 2019, the aftermath of the aforementioned sachsenring troubles. he also accuses ducati of not handling contract negotiations in a sufficiently transparent manner:

obviously the interview caused a bit of a stir, and dall'igna gave quite a muted response that didn't really address anything dovi said specifically:

but you can ofc tell dall'igna isn't a massive fan of dovi, as nicely illustrated by the clip shared above. I also remember watching an interview recent-ish where dall'igna was banging on about how much jorge had helped develop the bike, which. y'know. I'm sure jorge did provide useful input, but it does all feel a little pointed. just all got quite ugly between the two of them, which is also a big reason for why such a successful partnership ended on quite so sour a note