Enea Bastianini has been backed by his Ducati🐻 boss to compete for the 2024 MotoGP championship.

He was forced to watch on last season as factory Ducati teammate Francesco Bagnaia edged Pramac’s Jorge Martin and V🎶R46’s Marco Bezzecchi to win a second consecutive title.

It was Bastianini’s first sea🦩son in factory red but it was blighted by injury, the first and most severe🔯 of which was suffered on the first weekend of 2023.

But Bastianini w✃as the fastest rider on Day 2 of the preseason Sepang test to lay down a marker that he could return to the title picture to join Bagnaia, Martin, Bezzecchi and maybe even Marc Marquez.

🔥“Enea is absolutely over the moon,” said Ducati team manager Davide Tardozzi.

“After the really bad year that✤ he had last year - struggling for confidence with the bike, all the injuries, the accident in the first race at Portimao - it was something really heavy on his shoulders.

“He had a good race here, winning in Malaysia, but 𝓰he was struggling until t🧜he end in Valencia.

“Now, he’s anoꩵther rider. He is the Enea ൲Bastianini that we saw in 2022.

“We are really confident that he will be one of the contend🐷ers.”

Bastianini, in 2022 with Gresini, won the second-most amount of grands prix behind Bagnaia. They fought wheel-to-whe♛el in the closing rounds to earn Bastianini a promotion to the factory team above 𒊎Martin.

“I have to thank Pecco and Enea for they work 🌱in the team with the engineers,” Tardozzi said in ꧑Sepang.

“I see how many ideas♊ they exchange between them. The🗹y talk about new parts.

“Ther🐓e is confidence between the 𓆉two. This helps the engineers.”

Broadcaster Simon Cr𓂃afar added: “You know the ♐Enea that we saw at the race in Qatar, he won.

“ꦡDay 1 of the of🎶ficial test, that was the Enea who turned up.

“Wow, he was straight-away on it! Some riders took halജf a day to get the rust off.

“Enea just turned up and bang!

“The new engine, he’s made friends with straight away. The new bike seems like i🔴t suitsᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ him better.

“The big 🧸thing, for me, for Ducati? They seem confident🌺 with the whole package.

“It will only be ♚little tweaks. But it looks like it works.”

Tardozzi said about Ducati’s winter development: “We don’t want to make a revolution as we did in 2022, whౠen we were forced to run behind the problems of the fir🌺st winter test.

“In 2🍸022 and ‘23, we struggled. Now 🌱we have learned from the past.

“Gigi and the guys did a fantastic job.”

Bastianini, Bag💫naia and Martin have already insisted that the GP24 feels even better than last year’s bike, which dominated MotoGP.