Image: Supplied.

Ducati officially debuted their Desmo450 MX over the weekend at the opening round of the Pro-Prestige MX1 Italian Motocross Championship at Mantova. Alessandro Lupino took pole position and won the opening moto on Sunday but settled for second overall behind second moto winner Isak Gifting.

Lupino, already an eight-time Italian Champion, was quick all weekend long having topped the timetables in free practice and qualifying. His win in the first moto was a wire-to-wire victory to give Ducati their first race victory in their first attempt. The second moto saw Lupino get hung up in a first turn crash and he spent the entire second moto charging from the back to finish seventh.

“These were two very exciting days, my debut with the Ducati was truly a dream: they told me it would be, but today I experienced it!” said Lupino. “Feeling like a Ducatista is a truly special sensation. Congratulations to all the guys who worked on this project, because in a very short time they created a spectacular bike, with a lot of potential, doing an incredible job.”

“Together we wrote a page of history: first pole and first heat victory for the Ducati Desmo450 MX. Unfortunately, the second heat didn’t go as I would have liked: I got the start wrong and wasn’t able to recover. But that’s okay, now the engineers have the data to analyze two completely different situations!”

For the first time seeing Ducati’s Desmo450 MX, this was considered a tremendous success by the manufacturer.

“This weekend in Mantua we wrote another chapter in the history of Ducati,” explained Claudio Domenicali, CEO of Ducati Motor Holding. “Alessandro Lupino and our team gave us some great fun and, despite it being the first motocross race in our recent history, we immediately demonstrated outstanding performance. Best time in free practice, pole and victory in the first heat are truly a debut that lives up to expectations: we have gathered a lot of information which will be fundamental to best develop the bike that will be available to all enthusiasts next year. Congratulations to Alessandro and our entire off-road team, a fantastic start to a new story of sport and passion.”

It will be a month’s time until we see Lupino and the Desmo450 MX back in action as the Italian Motocross Championship resumes on April 27^th and 28^th at the Congoli MC circuit.