Marc Marquez will love the ‘big change’ Ducati test rider has just promised with 850cc MotoGP bikes

Add as preferred source on Google

Ducati test rider Michele Pirro’s early verdict on MotoGP’s 850cc bikes for 2027 shows the championship has just avoided one of Marc Marquez’s biggest fears for the future.

MotoGP will introduce a regulatory overhaul next year, headlined by the reduction in engine capacity from 1,000cc to 850cc. The premier class will also ban all ride height and holeshot devices, along with introducing broader restrictions on aerodynamics to improve the racing.

All five constructors have been testing their 850cc bikes for months now, but the race riders with confirmed 2027 seats only got their first taste during the Pirelli tyre test at Brno at the end of June. While it was a behind-closed-doors test, leaked lap times showed that Marquez was three seconds slower on Ducati’s 850cc bike compared to his qualifying lap this season.

Michele Pirro is convinced that MotoGP’s 850cc bikes will let riders ‘make a difference’

While lap times were slower, MotoGP riders overwhelmingly think the 850cc bikes are more fun after trying them during the recent Pirelli test at Brno. Multiple riders were pleased with how their bikes handled and how the 850cc rules have put more control back in their hands.

READ MORE: 2027 MotoGP regulations explained, from 850cc engines to aero restrictions

Ducati test rider Pirro is certain that MotoGP’s 850cc regulations will make next year’s bikes more enjoyable for riders. Pirro is also convinced that the 850cc bikes will make riders more important than they are in the 1,000cc era, as the new rules will let them make a difference.

“That’s definitely the direction,” Pirro told MOW. “The regulations were designed to give the riders more of a performance and margin, both with aerodynamics and with the starting systems and lowering devices, all to give the rider a little more room to make a difference.

“It’ll be a big change, especially because the tyres will also make a big difference. Whoever adapts best will have a big advantage in the first part of the season.”

Marc Marquez once warned MotoGP to keep the rider more important than the bike

Marquez will surely love hearing that Ducati test rider Pirro is convinced that the 850cc bikes will see riders enjoy more control again. Back in 2022, Marquez revealed that he had already been voicing his concerns that the bike was becoming more important to results than riders.

The Spaniard, while still riding for Honda, admitted that he feared MotoGP faced making the same mistakes as Formula 1 by heading in a direction that diminishes a rider or driver’s role. But MotoGP may have avoided Marquez’s fear with the 850cc bikes, based on Pirro’s claims.

Marquez told Autosport in 2022: “It’s true that now, or by the years, every time the machine I feel is [becoming] more important than the rider. Still, the rider is more important than the machine – or this is what I want to believe.

“But every time you are depending more on what you have, because if you don’t have a bike [that is competitive], you can’t do anything. It’s not like Formula 1, which is another extreme, but we are going in that way, and we need to be careful.

“And I said already in some safety commissions that, ‘guys, we need to be careful because in the end, we need to keep it that the riders are more important than the bikes’.”

Pirro debuted Ducati’s 850cc bike at Misano in April – long after KTM became the first brand to track-test their prototype for the 2027 regulations last December. Ducati World Superbike rider Nicolo Bulega will also conduct extra tests with their 850cc bike in the coming months.