Fabio Di Gianantonio rued the fact that Gresini wasn’t “patient” enough with him following his debut rostrum at Phillip Island, remarking that “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
The Italian was left without a berth in the premier class for 2024 after the Gresini squad elected to drop him amidst a tough sophomore campaign in the series, Di Gianantonio running as consistently the slowest of the Ducati-equipped pilots for the bulk of the year.
As Honda refugee Marc Marquez was confirmed to be taking over his ride within the Gresini team next season, Di Gianantonio made a key breakthrough with the setup on his machine. He secured points in both the sprint and grand prix races in the Japanese Grand Prix before scoring a best-ever result of fourth in Indonesia.
Di Gianantonio managed one better to secure a debut podium finish in this weekend’s Australian GP having fought for victory throughout the contest. He admitted post-race that “sometimes you have to be in the right place at the right time”, and wished that Gresini had a “little more patience with me” before opting to drop him.
“Sometimes you just have to be in the right place at the right time, and everything happened so fast with Marc (Marquez) and things so if that hadn’t happened and the team had a little more patience with me things could have been easier,” explained Di Gianantonio.
“It’s only my second year in MotoGP, and other riders have done an incredible job from the start of their careers here but for me, it just took a little more time.
“Rome wasn’t built in a day, so you have to work and understand against the best riders in the world and sometimes you just have to trust.
“It isn’t easy, but keeping up the hard work paid off in the end.”
Di Gianantonio added that he “took a little step back” in terms of aggression while fighting for victory in the closing laps with the likes of Jorge Martin and Francesco Bagnaia as “they are fighting for the championship”. Admitting the race felt “long”, he relished to fight the opportunity to fight up front and described the encounter as a “pure, fun race.”
“It was a long race for sure, as Pecco (Bagnaia) said we weren’t ready to do this long distance on Saturday, but it was a pure, fun race,” continued Di Gianantonio.
“I started well and was fast from the beginning, I tried to manage the rear tyre but I was also trying to push a little bit to not lose too much ground in the first laps.
“Then I caught Brad (Binder) and passed him, so I tried to make a little gap but it was not possible. Also, there was a little bit of wind, and when you were in front it was more difficult to push.
“The two in front were quite strong, and I wanted to overtake Pecco at Turn 4, but he did really well and I saw a little gap but I didn’t want to get into anything as they were fighting for the championship so I took a little step back.
“I knew I could have another opportunity to overtake Jorge later, so I tried to copy Pecco’s moves on me and it worked so it was a good race.”
Keyword: Di Gianantonio: ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’