Official Marquez-Ducati 2025, Ciabatti: “No to multi-million dollar contracts”

Ciabatti, from MotoGP to Motocross

From 2013 to 2023 Paolo Ciabatti it was one of the cornerstones of Ducati's recovery in MotoGP, which led the Borgo Panigale red bike to be clearly the best bike of the lot.

At 66, the Italian manager, after the two titles won by 'Pecco' Bagnaia, has decided to take a step aside, deciding to dedicate himself to the development of off-road projects. Ducati will be at the start of the Italian motocross championship, with Alessandro Lupino as rider and a champion like Tony Cairoli as luxury test rider.

Marquez and Ducati

In an interesting interview given to Corriere dello Sport, Ciabatti also spoke about MotoGP and questions inevitably came about Marc Marquez and the frantic wait to see him compete in the 2024 world championship with Ducati. “The smile of Marc Marquez after the first outing in the tests everyone saw it, as well as the times obtained without pushing to the maximum: he will be one of the protagonists, no one expects the opposite“, assured the Piedmontese.

Ciabatti then underlined: “Maybe it will give us some more headaches like Ducati, I imagine that the overall management will not be easy, but for the show it will be very interesting“. Final chapter dedicated to the 2025 official team, for which the Red team will have to move in time: “Almost all the riders are expiring at Ducati we will wait for the first 5-6 races to get a picture of the situation: we have quite clear ideas but we always need confirmation. One of the two 99% officials will be Bagnaia“. And Marquez is not a hypothesis to be excluded: “Ducati will make the evaluations based on the resultsbut from our point of view The days of multi-million dollar contracts are over. The fact of being the manufacturer with the most desired motorcycle allows Ducati to make more sustainable reasoning on an economic level.”