Jorge Lorenzo says MotoGP rules may be stopping the next Marc Marquez from emerging

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Marc Marquez remarkably won the MotoGP championship as a rookie in 2013. Since then, no Rookie of the Year winner has finished higher than fifth in the standings.

Fabio Quartararo is the best newcomer post-Marquez, having scored seven podiums for Yamaha satellite team SRT in 2019. Pedro Acosta, Johann Zarco and Pol Espargaro (all sixth) have also flourished quickly in the premier class.

2025 ROTY Fermin Aldeguer has been compared to Marquez, but while he won his first Grand Prix in Indonesia, inconsistency limited him to eighth in the standings.

Clearly, Marquez is a once-in-a-generation talent. But former rival Jorge Lorenzo says there’s another reason why his 2013 season is unlikely to be repeated.

Jorge Lorenzo critical of MotoGP’s lack of testing

Speaking to GPOne, Lorenzo emphasised just how big the gap between Moto2 and MotoGP has become. The 2024 world champion, Ai Ogura, started the year strongly at Trackhouse but ended up trailing in Raul Fernandez’s wake, while Somkiat Chantra never looked ready for MotoGP.

Lorenzo likened the current MotoGP bikes to ‘spaceships’ and says there’s insufficient time for young riders to get acclimatised. After the post-season test in Valencia, there’s a gap of over two months until the Sepang shakedown, with a testing ban in place for much of January.

There are two official pre-season tests in Malaysia and Thailand, each lasting three days, but track time is still significantly lower than in the past following cost-cutting measures.

“Today it’s even more difficult for that to happen,” Lorenzo said of Marquez’s 2013 title win. “Moto2 doesn’t have electronics, and MotoGP feels like a spaceship; there’s too much difference.

“You have to get used to something very different from what you’re used to, and you have to do it with very little testing. You have Valencia for a day, maybe three days in total, then you’re off for two months.

“You don’t have time to get used to it. Rookies have a few more tests.”

‘Pedro Acosta with the Ducati would be very dangerous for Marc Marquez’

While he stopped short of saying that Acosta could have won the title on a Ducati, Lorenzo thinks the Spaniard may have won races had he been on the best machinery last year.

Max Biaggi memorably won twice and finished runner-up to Mick Doohan in his debut 500cc season in 1998.

“One guy who could have done what [Max] Biaggi did is Pedro Acosta, in his rookie year, if he’d had a Ducati,” said Lorenzo. “He definitely would have done better than he did with the KTM.

“Pedro Acosta with the Ducati would be very dangerous for Marquez. Marquez is very strong, certainly even more complete than Pedro.

“But Pedro is young, he hasn’t had any major injuries. He’s whole, very strong. He’s an animal. He works like an animal, from six in the morning to 10 at night.”

Lorenzo picked Marquez and Acosta as his dream team from all the riders on the current grid.