Most weekends the Gotham Ducati DOC family rides the road-going descendants of Ducati's racing machines. This time, the racing came to us. Days before the 2026 MotoGP round at Circuit of The Americas, members got a rare home-field moment when the Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team pulled the covers off a special United States Grand Prix livery high above Manhattan — by the team's account, the first time a MotoGP machine had ever been revealed in New York City.
The unveiling took place at The Edge at Hudson Yards, with riders Fabio Di Giannantonio and Franco Morbidelli presenting the bike against the skyline.
The one-off design came from Aldo Drudi of Drudi Performance, leaning hard into a pop-art theme: the team's signature fluoro yellow as the base, comic-style graphics layered on top, and nods woven throughout to the squad's Tavullia roots — Valentino Rossi, Alessio "Uccio" Salucci — alongside American touches like the Stars and Stripes and Austin's observation tower. It wasn't just bodywork, either: the same artwork carried onto the riders' leathers for the weekend, with matching apparel produced to go with it. For a club built on Italian engineering, watching a Desmosedici get the full pop-art treatment over the Hudson was a fitting off-track highlight to a Saturday in the city.
The reveal also landed against an interesting competitive backdrop. Di Giannantonio rolled into the New York staging with real early-season momentum — sixth in the Thailand opener, then VR46's strongest showing yet in Brazil, where he grabbed pole, ran second in the Sprint, and took third in Sunday's Grand Prix.
Morbidelli's start had been quieter by comparison, eighth in Thailand and twelfth in the Brazil GP, leaving COTA shaping up as his chance to turn a measured opening into something bigger.
The Manhattan backdrop delivered the spectacle; Texas would settle the racing. Either way, it's not every weekend MotoGP shows up in our backyard — and the Gotham Ducati family was there for it.
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