Has Ducati kept the wrong man for 2017?

A lot has happened since October 17 2010, when Casey Stoner won that year's Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island for Ducati. Stoner went back to Honda, won another MotoGP title, retired, tried touring cars while testing sporadically for Honda and is now back at Ducati as a tester. Valentino Rossi replaced Stoner at Ducati, struggled, returned to Yamaha and is seemingly getting better and better.

Rossi also had a major feud with Marc Marquez, who since October 2010 has sealed that year's 125cc title, graduated to and conquered Moto2, then did the same in MotoGP to win two championships. Jorge Lorenzo added two more titles to his 2010 crown. Suzuki has been away and come back. Riders have turned over to such an extent that just seven from that 2010 Australian GP are still in MotoGP, one third of the current grid.

But one thing that had not happened until last Sunday was a Ducati victory. A run that in the end reached 2,128 days and 101 grands prix built up quietly and, by the start of this year, had become a fascinating subplot, given the quality of the Desmosedici GP developed by Ducati.

A variety of misadventures kept red bikes from reaching their potential, some of which were outlined here in June. The prevailing view was that one of those opportunities would - surely - have to stick sooner rather than later, and most people were pointing to the Red Bull Ring.

The rebuilt circuit is basically perfect for a Ducati, and its dominance of the pre-event test was telling but also ramped up the pressure. Other than when Marc Marquez crashed and dislocated his left shoulder on Saturday morning, all eyes during the Austrian Grand Prix weekend were on the red bikes and the Ducati garage.

Finally, it did click. Nothing went wrong. The Ducatis were as quick as everybody expected - even though Yamaha in particular surpassed expectations - did not break down, and neither Andrea Iannone or Andrea Dovizioso put a foot wrong all weekend.

As a result, Iannone ended Ducati's drought and claimed his maiden MotoGP victory. With Dovizioso second, it was Ducati's third one-two finish in the premier class and its first since the 2007 Phillip Island race, which Stoner won ahead of Loris Capirossi.

Last Sunday's outcome was a popular result. Ducati has handled its tough and, no doubt, massively frustrating times with good grace, and more winners is what you want in motorsport, which creates uncertainty and increased competition. For the first time since 2010, three brands have won a MotoGP race in the same season. We have now had five different winners so far this year - Iannone, Marquez, Lorenzo, Rossi and Jack Miller - the last time that happened was 2009.

Adding to Iannone's satisfaction will surely be that he was the one to get that Ducati win, especially as he is being squeezed out of the team next year to accommodate Lorenzo.

Part cause and part effect of how quickly the MotoGP silly season has progressed is that Lorenzo's move from Yamaha was sorted by the middle of April, just three races into this campaign. A little under one month later, Ducati announced that it would be keeping the other Andrea - Dovizioso - to partner the Spaniard. Iannone quickly announced that he was off to Suzuki, hinting that perhaps it wasn't all Ducati's choice.

But the reality is Iannone at that time had forced Ducati's hand. He had a tough end to the 2015 campaign, but even then would still have been the favourite to stay to partner a big fish in 2017 if Ducati caught one. Nearly three years younger than Dovizioso, he had also only joined the team last year, when he finished ahead in the championship and showed plenty of potential. Iannone out-qualified Dovizioso (a Ducati rider since 2013) 13-5 over the course of the season, and also had the ascendancy on fastest race laps, 11-7.

This year, though, things could not have started much worse. Ducati really should have won in Qatar, but Iannone and Dovizioso seemed more focused on their own battle than working to pull away from the lurking Lorenzo. Then Iannone fell while running second.

By the time MotoGP arrived in Argentina a fortnight later, talk that Lorenzo was heading to Ducati was rampant. Iannone could not have picked a less opportune time to not only crash at the penultimate corner while third, but take out second-placed Dovizioso in the process.

From there, Iannone's cards were marked. With his fifth DNF in six races straddling the off-season, he had more than exhausted any credits he had left in the bank. Few could argue with Ducati's decision to keep Dovizioso as a team-mate who will work and play well with Lorenzo. Iannone then collecting Lorenzo at Barcelona two months later seemed to reinforce that logic as well...

Will history show it is the right decision? Obviously there's no parallel universe in which you can play out the Iannone/Dovizioso 'stay at Ducati' scenarios, but times and people change.

Iannone is an enigma. He's blindingly fast with buckets-full of potential, but his list of mistakes at key times is long, and this year also includes falls in qualifying and the race at Le Mans, the first half of the Assen race (which he started last as a penalty for the Lorenzo-Barcelona incident) and then in qualifying at the Sachsenring. Put simply, if you had to select a man to save your life by riding a MotoGP bike, it would not be him.

But since Ducati made its decision to keep Dovizioso, he has also made mistakes. He, too, crashed out at Le Mans and squandered golden chances to win in mixed conditions at Assen (he fell while running second, just before leader Rossi went down) and the Sachsenring (ignoring Ducati's pleas to pit and staying out on wets too long).

Qualifying between the two is closer this year, but is still 6-4 in Iannone's favour, the same as fastest laps. However, you have the undefinable and undeniable allure of potential. What if Iannone could harness his massive speed for entire grand prix weekends, let alone a full season?

Had the silly season not kicked in so early, perhaps Ducati would have had more time to weigh up the pros and cons of its two Andreas. Events since then would have increased the chances of Iannone getting the nod, especially if Ducati was sitting down to make a decision, say, this week.

Iannone discussed in recent months trying to understand his own "limit" more, and if he was under pressure at the Red Bull Ring to put it together, it did not show. He accepted after qualifying that there was "responsibility" due to the situation, but, while nursing damaged ribs from a motocross training accident, he gave a tantalising but also frustrating view of what he can put together.

Dovizioso carried the mood of a rider quietly confident with his work entering the race. He was happy with his bike, his set-up choices, his long-run pace and how he could go about looking after the tyres and saving fuel. The race was Sunday, that was what mattered, not missing out on pole by 0.156 seconds.

Iannone's side of the garage seemed happy enough, too, but its rider had a new idea in his head. He wanted to go bold with his tyre strategy in the race, and headed out as one of just four riders on the grid running Michelin's softest front tyre. The next-highest rider doing that was Eugene Laverty in 11th. His immediate rivals were all on the medium compound.

Instinct kicked in again on the grid. Around the same time Stoner was on MotoGP's world broadcast feed saying running the medium rear was never really an option - the hard was the way to go - Iannone decided to roll another dice. Despite Ducati's initial reluctance, he set off for the 28 laps in the weekend's hottest conditions as the only rider not on the hard compound.

He kept his cool during the frenetic early laps, was not flustered when Dovizioso moved past him at Turn 9 to claim the lead, and repaid the favour 11 laps later, seven from the chequered flag. When his tyres should have been falling away, playing into Dovizioso's hands, Iannone picked up the pace and even pulled away over the closing laps.

If it was a Rossi performance, we'd have been calling it a masterclass. The reality is that it was, but perhaps the specifics were overshadowed by the milestones involved. He outsmarted Dovizioso, one of the most experienced riders on the grid and considered one of the most savvy, and joins him on the list of MotoGP race winners.

Dovizioso admitted he was "disappointed", which was probably an understatement. He has done a lot of the heavy lifting in developing the Desmosedici, and he remains stranded on his single grand prix victory, recorded with Honda in the 2009 British Grand Prix.

What happens now between the Ducati riders will be fascinating. The pressure and perhaps the shackles will be off and they are nearly in their own mini-championship, from sixth and seventh in the points. Dovizioso will be keen to bounce back and get on the board as a Ducati winner. Naturally, Iannone will want to head to Suzuki as a multiple GP winner, to show Ducati made the wrong decision.

One win does not make a summer and Ducati will know that. Dovizioso is a proven quantity and will continue doing good work when Lorenzo arrives, but if - and, yes, it's not a small if - Iannone can continue to keep a clear head and goes on a run of wins between now and the end of the year, he might well join Ducati's list of opportunities missed.