All true, and Danilo Petrucci actually said (wink wink, nudge nudge, I have no inside knowledge despite knowing many on the team as a recent factory Ducati rider) that Gigi wanted to see what a rider like MM could do on his bike.
However what I believe Lex is saying is that Ciabatti in parallel with Gigi ran a rider talent and development program for several years which produced at least 2 championship capable riders, including a rider who looked like a new hegemon as recently as a couple of weeks ago, and may do again in future if not this season which is not over yet. Lex is probably right that they could have dominated for several more years with the riders they already had, who are significantly younger than MM as well, and years of effort by Ciabatti have basically been abandoned.
MM’s box office appeal particularly with a possible Doohan comeback element, appeal to sponsors and appeal to the actual owners of Ducati who are German and not Italian were doubtless influential, and he may even have been cheaper (for Ducati) than Martin. The other thing is that historically even apart from being horrible at man management Ducati have not appreciated their hand being forced by riders and both Bagnaia with a contract demand and to a lesser extent Martin with an ultimatum that he be signed to the factory team have done this. Another thing is that MM appears to have played his hand perfectly and very intelligently, and perhaps less arrogantly than Rossi has done in similar circumstances, and in my biased opinion he has never really been petulant as Rossi has been. It was reasonable for him to reject Pramac as subsequent pronouncements from Pramac have demonstrated. If he really would have been happy to ride a GP25 for Gresini then the decision was partly political from a different direction,
As Lex said Gigi was always going to trump Ciabatti, he can walk to any team on the grid including Honda who were ready to back up a Brinks truck to unload money, and possibly Aprilia where he has historical connections and a record of success and are Italian. He has been proven correct about choice of riders at Ducati previously as well.
The bottom line from a racing point of view is how much of a threat MM would have been at Aprilia, which it has been reported was his serious option I would imagine the line of thought for many would be if Vinales can win on an Aprilia MM is much better than him. We have just been discussing how this proved incorrect in a parallel situation with Rossi and Stoner, but the Aprilia doesn’t appear to be a fundamentally flawed bike. Aprilia’s main deficiencies have been money, and imo riding talent, and MM could have brought both, including possibly quite major sponsorship.
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