Ducati unhappy with its 2015 MotoGP season despite improvement

The Italian team has not won in MotoGP since Casey Stoner's 2010 Australian Grand Prix triumph, and claimed just seven podium finishes from 2011-14 combined.

A major design overhaul for 2015 paid off with a return to form and eight podium finishes between Andrea Iannone and Andrea Dovizioso this year, but Dall'Igna said the failure to maintain early momentum left Ducati dissatisfied on reflection,

"I'm not so happy because the last part of the season was for sure not like we would like to be," he said.

"I can divide the season in three parts.

"The first one, where we were quite competitive and fought all the time for the podium and sometimes for the victory.

"The second part of the season where we lost something in comparison to our competitors.

"And the final part where we came back with really good results.

"We could not reach our target of the season -to win races.

"We fought for it sometimes and we nearly caught it twice during the year, but we didn't catch it and so we're not so happy."

Both Dovizioso, whose form declined in the latter part of the season, and Iannone complained of specific problems with the Ducati's behaviour for their riding styles.

While acknowledging these were areas where Ducati had to improve, Dall'Igna said the need to adapt to the control electronics and new Michelin tyres that will become standard in 2017 meant rider preferences would be on the backburner for now.

"Frankly speaking, the main problem in the braking area comes from Dovi," he said.

"He is very aggressive, very strong in that area, so he needs a bike like this.

"Iannone complained all the time about the rear grip, above all in the final part of acceleration.

"So we still have these two problems.

"But it's normal to have a problem in a racing bike. You have to develop step by step all the areas of the bike and try to win.

"We have some ideas to solve these problems but at the moment we have to manage the biggest steps of the new rules: the new tyres and software.

"After that we will come back to the issues that we still have."