Marco Bezzecchi
The 2025 season has been the year of the Marquez brothers, with Marc Marquez set to win his seventh title in MotoGP and Alex Marquez currently in the runner-up spot.
Only Alex Marquez can now deny Marc Marquez the 2025 riders’ title, as well. But Marc can clinch the championship next time out at the Japanese Grand Prix on September 26-28 if he leaves Motegi with an 185-point lead over the Spaniard’s sibling, who is currently 182 adrift.
The Marquez brothers also account for 13 Grand Prix wins and 15 Sprint wins, plus nine pole positions, through the first 16 of this year’s 22 rounds. Marc has taken 11 Grand Prix and 14 Sprint wins, plus eight poles, since the 32-year-old joined the factory Ducati team this term.
Gresini, meanwhile, saw Alex Marquez win the Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez to secure his first MotoGP race win in April. The 29-year-old was also the top Marquez brother in Barcelona in September, as Alex Marquez converted pole as he beat Marc to win the Catalan Grand Prix.
Alex Marquez thinks it is politically ‘complicated’ for Ducati chief Davide Tardozzi to ‘reward’ him
Alex Marquez’s Catalan GP even saw Ducati team manager Davide Tardozzi tell MARCA that they “will reward” the Gresini rider with a “technical” gift, as his results this year warrant it. But the Italian clarified that he was not suggesting that Marquez could ride a GP26 in 2026.
READ MORE: Everything to know about Alex Marquez from net worth to career stats
Yet Marquez has now told Motorsport.com that Ducati are yet to “reward” the Gresini rider, and that it would be politically “complicated” for Tardozzi to do so. The Cervera native notes that Ducati changed the wording in their contracts with each of their satellite teams in 2023.
“No,” Marquez said following Monday’s test at Misano. “I don’t know who Davide told about the reward. Sometimes, when you’re euphoric, you talk too much.”
He continued: “Politically, with team contracts, it’s not easy. You have to monitor them very carefully. They have a contract that requires the GP24s to be the same.
“It was the same with the GP23 last year. When someone had something new, everyone else had it, too. This is where it gets complicated for us, politically. In the past, in 2022, when Enea Bastianini was fighting for the title with Gresini, everything was more open.
“But from then on, they tried to limit the situation a bit more because that year, it was a bit out of control for them. They tried to make everything more fragmented. And, from 2023, they specified everything in the contract.”
Ducati are set to give Gresini rider Alex Marquez a factory-spec GP26 bike to ride in 2026
Bastianini finished third in the 2022 MotoGP riders’ standings during his second year on the grid with Gresini aboard a Ducati Desmosedici GP21. Factory Ducati rider Francesco Bagnaia won the title with 265 points over Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo on 248 and Bastianini on 219.
READ MORE: Everything to know about Gresini from the MotoGP team’s riders to hierarchy
Ducati promoting Bastianini into their factory line-up then opened a seat at Gresini for Alex Marquez from 2023, when he rode a GP22. The younger Marquez brother has continued to ride year-old machinery since, with a GP23 in 2024 and now a GP24 for the 2025 campaign.
But while Tardozzi clarified that he was not indicating that Marquez would receive a GP26 in 2026, MARCA added that the 29-year-old will ride a factory-spec Ducati at Gresini next year. The decision to hand Marquez a GP26 in 2026 was also made by the Borgo Panigale natives.
While Gresini can afford the GP26 for Marquez next season, they let Ducati make the call as Fermin Aldeguer has a factory contract with the Bologna Bullets unlike the Spaniard. But an upgrade to factory machinery is expected in Marquez’s future due to his sensational season.
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