Marco Bezzecchi
Ducati finally confirmed on Wednesday that Pedro Acosta will join the team in 2027 as Marc Marquez’s teammate.
Only hours after Ducati announced Francesco Bagnaia’s departure at the end of the year, they unveiled Acosta as their newest signing.
The match-up with Marquez, which has been an open secret for months already, is one of the most anticipated in MotoGP history. Many believe that Acosta is destined to be the face of the sport, but this is the ultimate rite of passage.
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Pedro Acosta to Ducati conjures Jorge Lorenzo to Yamaha memories
The parallels with Jorge Lorenzo’s move to Yamaha in 2008 are clear. The main difference is that Lorenzo was a rookie at the time, while Acosta will be starting his fourth season when he joins Ducati.
But Acosta will still only be 22 at the start of next year as he takes on another living legend.
Both riders were regarded as superstars in the making when the moves were announced. Lorenzo had just won back-to-back 250cc titles, notching 17 wins, 19 poles and 23 podiums in the space of 31 races.
Acosta holds the record for the most podiums without a win, but he has utterly outclassed three established race-winners at KTM since he joined the factory team last year.
Given what Marquez has achieved, this will be labelled a ‘dream team’, but it naturally comes with the risk of conflict too.
“I was quite angry with Yamaha because they thought that they needed a newcomer, they needed a very strong rival,” Rossi said when reflecting on Lorenzo’s arrival in the ‘Tales of Valentino‘ series.
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“I said, ‘F— why?’ I bet on Yamaha in 2004 when Yamaha was very, very slow. And we won a lot of championships together. I didn’t deserve Jorge Lorenzo as my teammate, I needed a little bit less.”
Rossi had won two MotoGP titles with Yamaha, and five in the premier class overall, before Lorenzo. Likewise, Marquez romped to the 2025 crown and may yet retain the title after making enormous gains on Marco Bezzecchi.
He has had Bagnaia in hand, but Ducati clearly view Acosta as a stronger rider, otherwise they wouldn’t have made the move.
The Marquez/Bagnaia combination was arguably the best on the grid already, but Luigi Dall’Igna has ruthlessly upgraded and, crucially, kept Acosta out of rivals’ hands.
The mutual respect between Marquez and Acosta has been obvious this season, and the former would back himself against rider, past or present. But like Rossi, he may question whether the change was really necessary.
It’s easy to maintain a cordial relationship at separate teams when there isn’t a title at stake. But next year, there will be nothing to cool the tension.
Ducati have paired two ultra-aggressive, fearsome riders who know that this partnership will partly shape their legacy. On that basis, it seems inevitable that they will fall out eventually.
They probably won’t require a wall in the garage like Rossi and Lorenzo did, but the conflict control abilities of Dall’Igna and Davide Tardozzi are bound to be tested in some capacity.
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