When Marc Marquez decided to leave Honda and abandon it to its fate, he had imagined it just like that: a year of transition and apprenticeship aboard a season-old Ducati in the Gresini team, with the aim of joining the official Borgo Panigale team in 2025 to be able to challenge ‘Pecco’ Bagnaia on the same bike. Marquez couldn’t miss a move, aware that he will start the next world championship blowing out 32 candles (the last to win a premier class championship at that age was Mick Doohan in 1998 at 33 years old) and knowing that he won’t have many more cartridges to shoot to increase his 6 titles already obtained in MotoGP and the 8 in total. On the GP23 Marquez was immediately fast and went back to having fun and tried to position himself in the media and politically in the best possible way in view of the Ducati choice.
The strategy is ruthless and masterful implemented at Mugello, starting from that ‘”Pramac is not an option for me” which handed him the official red for 2025 in the space of a handful of days. Ducati was looking for the best way to keep everyone on board, but Marquez wanted the official team and put Claudio Domenicali and Gigi Dall’Igna faced with a very painful choice: lose either him or Jorge Martin. And Ducati chose Marquez, despite the reassurances given to Martin, worried about handing over a revitalized and hungry Marc to the competition. Marketing then played its part, just think of the spotlight that shone on Marquez right from the tests at the end of last year and how much there was talk about him in the first races of this season. This is a success for the Spanish rider, who won the last world championship in 2019 and who has not climbed to the top step of the podium since 2021. And despite the lack of victories, he was the one who held the cards in this market scenario.
Thus Ducati’s plan is ruined, who wanted to bring Martin to the official team and move Marquez to Pramac. Between Marquez, Martin and Bastianini he lost two out of three, focusing on the more experienced horse with fewer years of career ahead of him. He lets go of two riders on whom he has invested and bet for years, both riding a Borgo Panigale bike from 2021, to welcome an already established champion, as happened in the past with Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo.
Jorge Martin’s plan is skipped, who understandably preferred to feel like a protagonist elsewhere rather than a second or third choice at Ducati. If the current world leadership wasn’t enough, if 12 victories in the Sprint and 6 in the GPs in the last two years weren’t enough, what more could the Spaniard have done in Pramac? Martin tore up a KTM contract to go to Ducati, but Ducati never gave him the – deserved – icing on the cake of the official team. And the Aprilia choice – not dictated by money – was the direct consequence of disappointment and the desire for revenge.
The Pramac team’s plan then fails, which aimed to have two Ducati GP25s in the next championship and to entrust one to Marc Marquez. Now everything changes. Paolo Campinoti will most likely accept Yamaha’s court, becoming Iwata’s satellite team and breaking the partnership with Borgo Panigale that had lasted since 2005. Ducati loses the team that formed Andrea Iannone, Danilo Petrucci, Jack Miller and ‘Pecco’ Bagnaia, all riders who had demonstrated less than Martin in Pramac, but who were promoted to the official team.
Enea Bastianini’s plan also fails, who had his chance, but who not even a ‘Martin-style’ start to the world championship could have reconfirmed in Lenovo. It is no mystery that in the event of Martin’s world championship victory at the end of 2023 he would have had to make way for the Spaniard, despite the existing contract and a year destroyed by the Portimao injury in which he was not to blame. KTM GasGas will be there for him, with the Austrian brand having had him in its sights for a few years already.
And perhaps even the plan of ‘Pecco’ Bagnaia’s desires is skipped, who – despite never having vetoed his boxing partner (and has reiterated it several times) – probably didn’t expect to have Marc Marquez at his side. “They asked me for my opinion on the new partner. I’m only interested in ensuring that those who arrive don’t ruin the environment…“, he whispered in Mugello. But having Marquez next to him could also be an opportunity for ‘Pecco’ to make it clear who is the strongest, with the same bike. And clarify it definitively to those who still have doubts about his value.
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