Ducati selected Marc Márquez for their factory MotoGP team in 2025, pairing him with Francesco Bagnaia. As a result, the team had to part ways with Enea Bastianini and did not choose Jorge Martín (Prima Pramac/Ducati) – despite the Spaniard fighting for the title with a satellite team for the second consecutive year.
Faced with the need to choose one from three riders, Ducati was at risk of losing the other two to rival manufacturers. However, Ducati anticipated losing only one of the two who were not selected.
Mauro Grassilli, who took on the role of sporting director at the end of 2023, told SPEEDWEEK.com that he failed in his goal of keeping the team intact for 2025 in its current form:
– When I took on this role, I tried to keep everything as it was for the next year. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. It’s a pity for us that we can’t continue with Pramac in the future. For several reasons: on one hand, economic. But also for personal and professional reasons.
Regarding the riders, Grassilli admitted that it wasn’t expected that the two not chosen for the factory team would end up leaving the manufacturer’s sphere: ‘Then, we only had one seat on our red bike to offer. By signing one rider, we lost two. It was clear that we would lose one. But losing two was unfortunate’.
Not being chosen by Ducati, Jorge Martín opted to join Aprilia to achieve his goal of becoming a factory rider with a competitive manufacturer. Bastianini, on the other hand, accepted the challenge from Tech3 to join KTM’s satellite team.