The 2026 Japanese Grand Prix at Motegi delivered another landmark moment in Ducati’s remarkable MotoGP era, as General Manager Gigi Dall’Igna celebrated his 100th Grand Prix victory with the Italian manufacturer.
The achievement came almost exactly a year after Marc Márquez secured the 2025 MotoGP riders’ title on a Ducati, underlining just how dramatically the manufacturer has transformed since Dall’Igna joined the project in 2013.
When Dall’Igna arrived at Ducati, the manufacturer had 31 premier-class victories to its name. By 2026, that number had climbed to 131, with 100 of those wins coming during his tenure.
The breakthrough arrived at the 2016 Austrian Grand Prix, when Andrea Iannone gave Ducati its first victory under Dall’Igna. It remains one of the moments the Italian engineer remembers most fondly.
“For sure, I'm proud about the job that all Ducati employees did during these years,” Dall’Igna said. “100 is a nice number... The first victory with Iannone in Austria was the one that was more important and I remember with the best memories.”
Source: Motorsport
Ducati’s rise has been built on more than simply taking advantage of changes to the MotoGP regulations. Under Dall’Igna, the manufacturer developed an aggressive approach to engineering, using technical concessions to address weaknesses in the Desmosedici while introducing innovations that would eventually influence the entire grid.
Ride-height devices and increasingly advanced aerodynamic concepts became key parts of Ducati’s development strategy. Even as MotoGP introduced major changes involving Michelin tyres, standardised electronics and tighter aerodynamic regulations, Ducati continued to find ways to extract more performance from its machines.
“I think that in the last 10 years, the bike has changed more than in all the other years,” Dall’Igna said. “So it's an important evolution that we push on in motorsport and we are really happy about that.”
That evolution has translated into an extraordinary run of results. Ducati captured its first MotoGP manufacturers’ championship in 2020 and has remained unbeaten in the category ever since.
The manufacturer has also enjoyed a remarkable streak in the riders’ championship. Márquez’s 2025 title was Ducati’s fourth consecutive riders’ crown, following Francesco Bagnaia’s championships in 2022 and 2023 and Jorge Martin’s triumph in 2024.
The scale of Ducati’s strength was particularly clear in 2024, when its GP24 and GP23 machines combined to win 19 of the season’s 20 Grands Prix. The GP24 alone accounted for 16 victories, while the GP23 added another three.
Despite the success of those machines, Dall’Igna considers the GP15 from 2015 to be one of the most important bikes of his Ducati career.
“Honestly, the 2015 machine was the most important, because with that machine, we made a real step,” he said. “It was not easy, there was a lot of pressure at that time. So, I think that bike... stays in my heart more than all the others.”
The GP22 also holds a special place in Ducati’s history, having carried Bagnaia to the manufacturer’s first MotoGP riders’ championship in 15 years.
Ducati’s achievements under Dall’Igna now place the manufacturer among the sport’s greatest periods of dominance. Honda won 68 of 87 races between 1994 and 1999, giving it a higher winning percentage, while Mercedes recorded 111 victories from 163 Formula 1 races between 2014 and 2021.
Ducati’s near-50 percent win rate across a much longer period has nevertheless established it as the benchmark of the modern MotoGP era.
The 100th victory under Dall’Igna is therefore more than another number on Ducati’s record sheet. It represents a decade-long transformation from a manufacturer searching for consistency into the dominant force in the premier class.
With MotoGP continuing to evolve and further regulation changes ahead, Ducati’s next challenge will be maintaining that advantage. But at Motegi, Dall’Igna had every reason to look back with pride at how far the project has come.
