Marco Bezzecchi
Ducati dominated at the 2025 season-opening Thai Grand Prix with Marc Marquez sealing a hat-trick, yet the Bologna Bullets have faced issues with their new engine.
Buriram played staged to the Marquez show last weekend as the 32-year-old scored his first pole position, Sprint Race win and feature race victory on debut for Ducati. The Spaniard has replaced Enea Bastianini in red this term after Ducati snubbed Jorge Martin to sign Marquez.
It is now widely expected that Marquez and Francesco Bagnaia are in a fight all on their own for the 2025 MotoGP riders’ title. The former is looking to match Valentino Rossi as a seven-time premier class champion, while the latter is looking to lift his third MotoGP crown so far.
Yet, despite Marquez dominating the Thai GP to leave Bagnaia seeming beaten, Ducati went to the season-opener still questioning if they should homologate their GP24 engine again or lock in their new GP25 unit for not just 2025 but 2026 due to MotoGP’s development freeze.
Ducati test rider Michele Pirro failed to detect the engine braking issue of their GP25 unit
Ultimately, Ducati gave Marquez, Bagnaia and VR46 rider Fabio Di Giannantonio a marginally different engine than Gresini pair Alex Marquez and Fermin Aldeguer plus VR46 pilot Franco Morbidelli at the Thai GP. Yet the GP25 unit has just minor differences, per Motorsport.com.
The issue over which engine Ducati would give Marquez, Bagnaia and Di Giannantonio – the only riders using the Desmosedici GP25, rather than GP24 – stemmed from the GP25 engine marking a step backwards from the GP24 in terms of engine braking, but not power delivery.
READ MORE: Everything to know about Marc Marquez from net worth to girlfriend
Now, Motor Sport Magazine reports that lead Ducati test rider Michele Pirro did not detect the engine braking problem that Bagnaia and Marquez ‘immediately’ felt using the GP25 V4 unit. So, Ducati effectively went to their GP24 engine at the 2025 season-opener at Buriram.
Pirro had completed as many laps testing the GP25 engine as MotoGP’s rules allowed Ducati to improve the unit’s corner-entry and corner-exit behaviour. Yet the 38-year-old did not feel the same behaviours that Bagnaia and Marquez could when they got to test it in pre-season.
What did Francesco Bagnaia say about Ducati’s 2025 MotoGP engine at the Sepang Test?
Ducati initially rejected their GP25 engine after pre-season testing after failing to resolve the engine braking issues they noticed. The Borgo Panigale natives felt the issue outweighed the gains Ducati might have enjoyed in terms of power delivery if they homologated the V4 unit.
Even Bagnaia rejected Ducati’s 2025 engine after his first laps trialling it at the Sepang Test as the Italian immediately felt it was not ready to race. Yet the Bologna Bullets persisted in pre-season and would ultimately use a modified version of the GP25 engine for the Thai GP.
READ MORE: Everything to know about Francesco Bagnaia from net worth to race number
Bagnaia felt the GP25 engine marked a step backwards compared to the GP24 unit in terms of engine braking when Ducati trialled it over the Sepang Test at the home of the Malaysian Grand Prix. But he was a fan of the GP25 engine’s power delivery, heightening the dilemma.
“The power delivery is very smooth and we like it a lot,” Bagnaia stated, via Autosport. “It’s the first time that a new engine is that smooth in terms of acceleration and this is great. But even if we have closed a bit of the gap in terms of braking, it is still a bit far from the GP24.”
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