In this way, the Italian team confirms the information advanced this Monday by Motorsport.com, which revealed that the Borgo Panigale constructor had changed its mind and decided to bet on the Catalan rider instead of Jorge Martín. Hours after the news broke, Aprilia officially announced the signing of the Madrid rider, in the first step of the operation that was finalized the next day.
“Ducati Corse is pleased to announce that it has reached an agreement with Marc Márquez for the next two years. At the end of the current season, where he rides the Desmosedici GP for Gresini Racing MotoGP, the eight-time World Champion (31 years old) will join the Ducati Lenovo Team alongside Francesco Bagnaia and will ride the red bike of the Borgo Panigale team until 2026,” reads the official statement issued this Tuesday.
Thus, Márquez gets his way, leading him to don the red suit at 32 years old with eight world titles, six of them in MotoGP, in his palmarés. With only seven races on a Ducati, which is also last year’s model (2023), the Gresini team rider is third in the overall standings, 35 points behind the leader, Martín.
This move is a clear example of the authority Márquez holds in the championship, as in just four days he was able to change the minds of the top executives of the Bolognese company. Initially, their plan to keep both him and Martín was to promote the latter to the factory team and place the rider from Cervera (Lleida) in Pramac.
However, the Italian executives succumbed to the ultimatum posed by the Catalan last Thursday, when he was more emphatic than usual: “Pramac is not an option for me.” Faced with this firmness and the threat of signing with KTM or Aprilia, Ducati’s top management feared losing the main attraction of a championship whose popularity is rapidly rising, partly due to the good performance of #93 once he got on a Desmosedici. Despite the details of the agreement being settled in Mugello last weekend, the announcement was delayed due to various legal filters that had to be overcome.
After eleven years as the face of Honda, with whom he won six out of seven possible titles between 2013 and 2019, Márquez decided to close his chapter with the golden wing brand and renounce the last year of his contract (2024), driven by the ordeal he had been enduring since that test in Jerez in 2020, where he broke his arm. This was followed by four surgeries and much confusion due to the lack of competitiveness of a very critical prototype, which led him to suffer countless falls.
A third of a season has been enough for the multi-champion to leverage all his speed, influence, and the multiplier effect of his image, thus persuading Claudio Domenicali and Gigi Dall’Igna, CEO and general manager of Ducati, respectively, who make the most important decisions.
