As it is known, Marco Bezzecchi had the opportunity to join Prima Pramac for the 2024 MotoGP season – where he would have a Ducati Desmosedici GP24 equal to the factory team’s. However, he chose to stay with Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team, even knowing that the equipment would not be as updated.
A somewhat surprising decision, as he ended up choosing to stay the same rather than take another small step in his career. The Italian explained to SPEEDWEEK.com: ‘It was a difficult decision because Ducati offered me a factory package. I don’t know if it would have been completely factory or an intermediate step, but for me it had to do with the fact that nowadays in MotoGP you have to perform very quickly. […]. I knew that the human side was very important to me and I had to build this relationship with my team. When you know you have to perform very quickly – to have that pressure when you change teams, not knowing if I would feel the same way, if I would build the same relationship and maintain the same way of working as with my current chief mechanic, because I probably wouldn’t have been able to bring Matteo Flamigni with me… . You simply need that feeling’.
In addition, Bezzecchi emphasized that he would not really be moving to a factory team, which is the goal of progression, preferring to remain loyal to VR46, which has supported him since the beginning: ‘In the end, I said to myself: “Why should I switch from one customer team to another customer team?”. My goal, like that of all MotoGP riders, is to join a factory team. The VR46 Riders Academy has been working since my debut in Moto3 to prepare me for a factory team. They have done so much for me, why should I leave them to go to another satellite team?’.
Although he does not deny that he would like to have a factory set at VR46, #72 highlighted that he also knows the good value of the material he has: ‘Of course, a factory bike, a factory set, is very interesting and I would have loved to have it in this team too, but in the end I know that even with a set that is one year old I can achieve very good results because the Ducati set is very competitive’.
