by MotoGP has recorded its biggest audiences and biggest speeds (227mph head has now been hit) but as the 75-year-old series opens the throttle this weekend at the Lusail International Circuit in Qatar, d an internal struggle could disrupt the current power in the sport. .
Ducati head into the 21-round campaign as defending champions for the second year in a row courtesy of a composed Pecco Bagnaia and looking to extend their ‘Triple Crown’ status (rider, team and constructors’ titles). The Bologna-based MotoGP firm has ranked as the best manufacturer for the last four seasons largely thanks to the technical supremacy covering four teams and eight riders from the 22-man grid.
For their strength and engineering prowess (they won 17 out of 20 grands prix in 2023 with six of their eight riders, another brand record) Ducati could be a very hot slick in their hands for 2024. Hopefully with Bagnaia to resume his 2023 duel with Jorge Martin; the spiky Spaniard has the same kit as the champion, but is based in the satellite Pramac squad and has been overlooked for a factory deal alongside Bagnaia for 2023.
Then there is the ‘other Spaniard’. Eight-time world champion Marc Marquez caused one of the biggest upsets since Valentino Rossi’s defection from Honda to Yamaha two decades ago when he prematurely ended an 11-year association with HRC a he had won six crowns. Marquez opted to leave the non-competitive Repsol Honda to join Ducati’s other satellite team, Gresini Racing, and steer Bagnaia’s 2023 machine.
Ducati has gathered a force that includes the best rider with their technology in Bagnaia, the toughest competitor from 2023 in Martin and now arguably the best motorcycle racer of all time. How they handle and digest this mix of speed and egos will be a test of their minds as tacticians. The departure of several prominent technicians to KTM and Yamaha hardly helped matters, while Ducati Corse’s sporting director Paolo Ciabatti, the man who helped build the grand plan for the bikes and contracts, left the program during the winter to take charge of the company’s new off-road. department.
Bagnaia, 27, from Turin, signed a new two-year contract last week with the Lenovo factory team which will bring his Ducati era up to eight full seasons in red. He dominated pre-season tests in both Malaysia and Qatar, breaking the lap records at Sepang and Lusail. “We were all in the same direction, I wanted a Ducati, I needed a Ducati, so it’s something that comes together,” he said on Thursday in Lusail on the eve of round one. “We are here to fight and find out who will be the main competitor. So, let’s see,” he added to the emerging prospect of a Martin/Marquez threat.
At the end of 2023 there were rumors that Martin was unhappy with his lot at Ducati. In Qatar he insisted his choice to stay on the Desmosedici bike was to displace Bagnaia’s team-mate Enea Bastianini for 2025.
“I think I’m in… well, maybe not the best possible seat at the moment, otherwise I’d already be signed for two seasons for factory Ducati [team], but it’s not on me. They know what I want … but right now I feel really good here.”
All but four riders face contract decisions for 2025. Martin is near the top of the market and has never been in a better position to make a claim.
Then there is Marquez. The 31-year-old topped the crash charts in 2023 and has not won a grand prix in more than a year due to an ongoing period of injury frustration and four operations on a broken right arm in 2020 which meant Honda trailed a peers.
Now, for all the potential of the best bike with the greatest rider, the Catalan insists that he will need time to get used to the Ducati’s peculiarities and its limits. “I feel comfortable but I’m not ready to fight for the podium, I’m not ready to fight for the win,” he said modestly at Lusail on Thursday.
By having Marquez in the stable, Ducati has boosted its own stock and nullified some of its competition, but what if Marquez starts using a year-old bike to defeat the Bagnaia/Martin dynamic?
Marquez claims he has the support of Ducati management, regardless of the outcome. “If you don’t feel the support, you don’t make the decision,” he explained why he had to sacrifice a rumored €18 million annual contract for 2024 to take part in Ducati’s satellite effort.
“It’s true that I’m on the Gresini team. It’s true that I’m riding a 2023 bike, but this is something I already knew. I always feel a lot of respect, and this was and is important for my confidence.”
Full coverage of the 2024 MotoGP season can be seen on TNT Sports. The IS British Grand Prix held at Silverstone on 2-4 August
