Mat Oxley: ‘Marc Márquez’s Ducati factory contract is a significant signing for 2025’
Despite being out of the MotoGP title hunt since 2019, Marc Márquez still has the spark of genius — as Ducati insiders have seen
Marc Márquez’s epic MotoGP journey will take another twist at the end of this season. The rider – who won six world titles in seven years with Honda, spent the next four seasons in injury hell and this year swapped his factory RC213V for a second-hand Ducati – will be a factory Ducati rider in 2025.
This is a hugely significant signing for all kinds of reasons. Márquez hasn’t been in the championship hunt since 2019 and yet Ducati Corse chief Gigi Dall’Igna chose him over Pramac Ducati rider Jorge Martin, last year’s MotoGP runner-up, this year’s championship leader (at the time of writing) and currently the rider with the most outright speed.
Why would Dall’Igna do that? Because he sees something unique in Márquez. Dall’Igna had already decided to promote the 31-year-old to the factory team after his first few outings aboard the 2023 Desmosedici he rides for the independent Gresini team. That only means one thing: the man who has presided over Ducati’s utter domination of MotoGP sees objects of wonder in Márquez’s data.
And Dall’Igna isn’t the only insider who considers Márquez to be the most talented rider on the grid, even though he had been nowhere for years until his move to Gresini.
A few weeks ago I interviewed Fabio Quartararo, the 2021 MotoGP title winner who is still one of the championship’s most gifted riders, even though he’s struggling aboard Yamaha’s below-par YZR-M1.
Whose riding impresses you the most, I asked the Frenchman. “Marc,” he replied. “For me, he is the fastest. He’s the guy who really impresses me the most.”
Márquez’s genius is to improvise. When he finds an aspect of machine performance that limits his lap time he finds a way around it. He did this with Honda’s RC213V, finding the winning edge by sliding the front tyre in a way that no one else had ever done.
This year Ducati has been troubled by chatter, caused by a mismatch between Michelin’s 2024 tyres and its Desmosedici, especially last year’s GP23, ridden by Márquez and others. Chatter is a high-speed vibration that can have the tyres bouncing several millimetres off the asphalt, so it destroys performance. Márquez found a way to ride around the problem, using throttle, brake and body position to damp out the chatter.
There’s another reason Dall’Igna wants Márquez. The 58-year-old Italian is the Márquez of MotoGP engineering, dedicated to winning by any means necessary, which is why he has driven a juggernaut through the championship’s technical regulations in recent years, with new technologies like downforce aerodynamics and hydraulic ride-height devices, which no one else wanted.
“Acosta is dazzling MotoGP in his rookie season”
Márquez’s arrival in the factory Ducati garage will not please reigning MotoGP champion Pecco Bagnaia. They don’t get on and Bagnaia will see Márquez as a threat to his number-one status in the team.
It’s all a bit Prost and Senna. This is part of Dall’Igna’s plan – and he will enjoy managing these two egos as much as he loves ducking and diving through MotoGP’s rulebook.
However, there is one part of Dall’Igna’s cunning plan that may blow up in his face. His great hope was somehow to retain both Márquez and Martin for 2025, by promoting Martin from Pramac to the factory team and giving Márquez the latest-spec bikes at Pramac. But when Márquez made it clear that he would only accept a factory-team berth, Dall’Igna was forced to choose one and lose the other. The day after Ducati rejected Martin the 26-year-old Spaniard signed for rival Italians Aprilia. And hell hath no fury like a rider spurned.
Martin with Aprilia will give Dall’Igna some sleepless nights, not only because he knows Martin’s skills, but because Aprilia has made giant strides in recent seasons; its RS-GP MotoGP bike now rivals Ducati’s Desmosedici.
The RS-GP is of a similar configuration to the Ducati, with a 90-degree V4 engine at its heart. Aprilia has also embraced the downforce aero revolution, hiring aerodynamicists from Ferrari’s F1 project. Some pitlane engineers consider the RS-GP’s latest aerodynamics to be the most effective in MotoGP.
All the Noale-based company has really lacked is a super-talent like Martin. Its riders Aleix Espargaró and Maverick Viñales are fast but they don’t have Martin’s commitment.
Ducati’s loss isn’t only Aprilia’s gain. It’s also great news for MotoGP. The championship needs fast riders on fast bikes to challenge Ducati, which has won the last two riders’ titles and the last four constructors’ prizes.
Márquez will face several challenges in 2025: first, to gain the upper hand inside Ducati’s factory-team garage; second, to better Martin and the Aprilia; third, to deal with KTM’s Pedro Acosta who is dazzling MotoGP in his rookie season and is expected to be a 2025 title contender.
If Márquez can win the title he may just be acknowledged as MotoGP’s greatest of all time, thanks to his otherworldly talent and his superhuman ability to keep fighting after years of surgeries, including a gruesome humeral osteotomy, which had surgeons cut his right upper-arm bone in two, rotate the lower part 30 degrees and plate the two halves back together.
Without that operation, Márquez would’ve been forced to quit because he couldn’t control his motorcycle properly. Some journey.
Mat Oxley has covered motorcycle racing for many years – and also has the distinction of being an Isle of Man TT winner
Follow Mat on Twitter @matoxley
