Franco Morbidelli has branded 2024 “an important yr” for himself and believes he might have fought for fifth within the MotoGP standings with out his pre-season concussion.
The Italian joined Pramac on a works-spec GP24 for final season, however had his preparations curtailed after struggling a concussion in a coaching incident in Portugal within the winter.
He missed all of testing because of this, whereas later revealing that he suffered from reminiscence loss within the weeks after sustaining the harm.
Morbidelli was in a position to line up on the grid for the primary spherical of 2024, however struggled to adapt to the GP24 and didn’t rating factors till he was seventh on the French GP.
Within the latter levels of the yr Morbidelli grew to become an everyday prime six contender and managed a dash podium on the San Marino GP on his option to ninth within the standings – albeit 213 factors behind the subsequent GP24 of manufacturing unit rider Enea Bastianini.
With out his harm woes, he believes he might have made it into the highest 5 within the championship however no increased.
“I believe I might have fought for P5 within the championship,” he stated.
“Not P4, not P3. However P5, yeah, I might have fought for it.
Reflecting on the yr, Morbidelli added: “Total it was an important yr for the workforce.
“It was an important yr for me as properly. I got here again to battle for prime spots and I’m actually near prime spots.
“And I’m trying ahead to creating this final step to get there and catch wins and catch podiums as I want to constantly.
“However total it was an important yr for me and for the workforce as properly.
“We did an important comeback from the start of the yr, from the previous two years. So, it’s a optimistic season.”
Morbidelli steps away from the Pramac workforce for 2025 to race for mentor Valentino Rossi’s VR46 squad and can stay on the precise GP24 he completed the earlier marketing campaign on.
