Marco Bezzecchi
The 2027 MotoGP season will feature a completely new formula of prototype bike, but that may not be the only thing changing at Ducati.
The recently concluded 2025 season was one of two halves in the garages of the factory Ducati MotoGP team.
On one side, they had Marc Marquez winning close to everything once the lights dropped at the start of a race, whereas on the other side, Francesco Bagnaia struggled to string together consecutive podium finishes.
It was by no means a disaster of a season for the team, far from it. They ended up taking a clean sweep of all three championships in 2025, adding to the ones they had already accrued in recent years.
However, behind the scenes at the team, things are changing. And we could see a new line-up in the leadership department for the 2027 campaign.
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Davide Tardozzi could leave Ducati ahead of the 2027 MotoGP season in a restructuring of the team
According to a report by La Gazzetta dello Sport, higher-ups within the Ducati fold at Borgo Panigale aren’t happy with some of the ‘statements’ that were made by Davide Tardozzi during the 2025 campaign.
The rift is in regard to the way Bagnaia’s various issues with the GP25 were handled in the public eye.
Relations between Tardozzi and general manager Luigi Dall’Igna have ‘not exactly been idyllic’, according to the report, due to the fact that they have differing opinions on Ducati’s response to the two-time world champion’s struggles.
Tardozzi admitted that Ducati were unable to properly help Bagnaia previously, but his counterpart believes that the Italian rider had ample opportunity to turn his season around, to no avail.
Thus, ‘internal rumours’ inside the Borgo Panigale factory believe that Tardozzi won’t be a part of Ducati’s charge during the first year of MotoGP’s regulatory overhaul.
The report serves as quite a surprise, given the fact that the Italian constructor has enjoyed so much success in recent years.
Since the start of the new decade, Ducati bikes have won every single constructors’ championship, four out of the six riders’ championships, and five out of the six teams’ titles.
- READ MORE: Luigi Dall’Igna pulls quick U-turn on Ducati’s ‘trust’ in Francesco Bagnaia after nightmare season
Davide Tardozzi previously left Ducati at the end of 2009 due to a conflict with another team member
Tardozzi’s first stint at Ducati came in 1999, where he was given the job to lead the Italian constructor’s charge in the World Superbikes category upon his retirement from an active racing career.
He would bring a lot of success to the team, with Carl Fogarty, Troy Bayliss and Neil Hodgson all winning titles in the production motorcycle racing category under his leadership.
However, things took a turn for the worse in 2009, after clashing with another member of the team. In La Gazzetta dello Sport’s report, they outline what happened through Tardozzi’s own words, who said, “Someone spread lies about me.
“The company lost faith in me. So, I literally left from dusk till dawn. I emptied out my office and left the keys. A year and a half later, the person who had kicked me out came back to me and apologised.”
He returned to the fold in 2014, in the same role he is currently in today, and went on to replicate his title-winning feats as a team manager with Ducati.
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