Fabio Di Giannantonio is starting to feel positive again after a difficult season last year. The Italian rider believes the front-end problems he had before may now be fixed, but he wants to be sure when MotoGP goes to Thailand later this month.

Di Giannantonio rides for the VR46 Ducati team. At the Sepang test in Malaysia, he finished third fastest overall, which was a strong result. He was riding Ducati’s newer GP26 bike and said the feeling from the front tyre was much better than before.

Last season, Fabio often struggled with the front of the bike. The feeling could change a lot from one session to the next, which made it hard for him to ride with confidence. This time, things felt more stable.

He said he was very happy with the three days of testing because the speed and feeling were always there. He explained that he did not have any slow laps, no matter what kind of run the team was doing.

During the test, Fabio tried many different things. The team worked on set-up changes and tested new parts for the chassis and aerodynamics. Even with all these changes, the front of the bike continued to feel good, which he sees as a big improvement.

Rain caused some problems on the second day, and this stopped the team from running all their favourite parts together at the same time. Because of this, Fabio says he has not yet tested his full package. He hopes to do this at the final pre-season test in Buriram.

His fastest lap at Sepang was a 1:56.785s, set on the final morning. In the afternoon, he tried to go even faster with a different set-up, but it did not work as planned.

One word Fabio used to describe the GP26 was “predictable”. For him, this is very important. He says the main problem in the past was not knowing what the front tyre would do. At Sepang, nearly every change still gave him a good feeling from the front.

The next big test will be in Thailand, where conditions are very different. Fabio says this is the key moment to see if the good feeling continues. If it does, he will be much more confident going into the new season.

He also said the high grip at Sepang was normal and realistic. Malaysia is known for strong grip levels, especially after many bikes have been on track, so the test conditions were still useful for learning.

Team-mate Franco Morbidelli also had a solid test and finished seventh fastest. He later said that his bike should not really be called a GP25, as it used a different specification.

For now, Di Giannantonio is calm but hopeful. Thailand will give the final answer, but Sepang has given him a strong reason to believe again