At Assen, Ducati MotoGP Project Director Paolo Ciabatti revealed to the MotoGP.com website that they, too, will be offering bikes for non-MSMA teams in 2014. While Honda is selling a simplified production racer version of the RC213V, and Yamaha is to lease M1 engines, the package Ducati is offering could turn out to be very interesting indeed. Instead of producing a separate machine, Ducati will be offering the 2013 version of the Desmosedici to private teams, to be entered as non-MSMA entries, and using the spec electronics hardware and software package provided by Magneti Marelli.
Although the current 2013 machine is still far from competitive - at Assen, the two factory Ducatis finished 33 seconds behind the winner Valentino Rossi, and behind the Aprilia ART machine - the special conditions allowed for non-MSMA entries make the Desmosedici a much more interesting proposition. Though the main difference between the MSMA entries (i.e. factory and satellite teams, using bikes run directly from the factories) and non-MSMA entries (i.e. privateer teams, using any bike they like) is in the choice of software for the spec ECU (MSMA entries get to write their own software, non-MSMA entries have to use the standard Marelli software), the amount of fuel (20 vs 24 liters) and the number of engines (5 vs 12), there are a couple of other differences which are also significant.
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