Why some in Ducati management were always against signing Marc Marquez for 2025 MotoGP season

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Six-time premier class champion Marc Marquez will race for Ducati’s factory team for the 2025 MotoGP season. Marquez received a promotion from satellite squad Gresini at the expense of eventual world champion Jorge Martin.

Marquez joined Gresini for the 2024 season after leaving Honda, where he’d spent the entirety of his career up to that point. He would finish third in the standings with 392 points despite riding the GP23 bike, 116 behind Pramac’s Martin.

With two-time world champion Francesco Bagnaia under contract, it was effectively a shoot-out between Marquez and Martin for the second seat at the factory squad in place of Enea Bastianini. While the latter was the championship leader when the decision was made, the former carries a unique status within the sport.

Martin instead joins Aprilia, where he’ll race alongside Marco Bezzecchi. Marquez and Bagnaia form a titanic duo with a combined eight titles, 103 wins, 107 poles and 198 podiums at MotoGP level.

Ducati would have hoped to keep both riders in their stable. But neither were prepared to accept anything less than a spot at the flagship outfit.

Some at Ducati fear Marc Marquez will upset the established order at the team

Speaking on The Race’s MotoGP podcast, journalist Lewis Duncan raised concerns over the dynamic at Ducati in 2025. Some in Bologna were evidently ‘very, very keen’ to sign the biggest name on the grid.

However, there were others that made it clear ‘from the outset’ that they were against the promotion of Marquez. The Spaniard will turn 32 before the season starts, while Martin will only be 27.

While Marquez’s retirement certainly doesn’t seem imminent, they’ve lost his potential successor ahead of what could be his prime years. Ducati swept the championships in 2024, and perhaps the reshuffle will disrupt the successful formula.

“That’s going to be the interesting thing for me going into next year as well – that power dynamic, with Marc in there upsetting the whole order,” Duncan said. “There’s clearly some facets of management that were very, very keen for him to be there. Others that probably, from the outset, weren’t.”

Ducati divisions could hurt Marc Marquez as he chases Valentino Rossi

For all the inevitable fanfare around Marquez’s ascension, this creates a rather uneasy backdrop. He’ll be fully aware that some in the team would rather have been working with Martin.

This will likely go one of two ways – he’ll rally the team behind him (and given his enduring class, that’s a strong possibility), or the factions will grow further apart. Marquez is bidding to match Valentino Rossi’s haul of seven MotoGP titles, second only to Giacomo Agostini all-time.

Another intriguing subplot concerns Bagnaia. The Italian has been with the team since the start of 2021, winning titles in 2022 and 2023, but Marquez’s arrival clearly threatens his internal status.