{"id":182622,"date":"2025-10-01T13:33:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T13:33:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/182622\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T13:33:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T13:33:06","slug":"franco-morbidelli-insists-his-2026-ducati-motogp-package-not-fixed-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/182622\/","title":{"rendered":"Franco Morbidelli insists his 2026 Ducati MotoGP package \u201cnot fixed yet\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>VR46 MotoGP rider Franco Morbidelli says the specification of Ducati package that he will race next year is \u201cnot fixed yet\u201d and is wary of the \u2018struggles\u2019 others have had on the GP25.<\/p>\n<p>Ahead of last weekend\u2019s Japanese Grand Prix, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/news\/1081983\/1\/official-alex-marquez-gets-factory-ducati-motogp-2026\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ducati announced that it would be adding a fourth GP26<\/a> to its roster for next season after electing to promote Gresini\u2019s Alex Marquez to a factory spec bike.<\/p>\n<p>VR46 MotoGP team boss Pablo Nieto then <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/news\/1082453\/1\/vr46-makes-surprise-revelation-about-franco-morbidellis-2026-motogp-bike\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">revealed that Ducati had offered that bike for Franco Morbidelli,<\/a> but the decision was made for him to run the GP25 instead.<\/p>\n<p>The GP25 has won 13 of the 17 races run so far this season and dominated the championship with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/racer\/1654\/marc-marquez\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Marc Marquez<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>However, Pecco Bagnaia struggled for much of the season on the bike prior to some \u201cunconventional\u201d changes made for Motegi, while Fabio Di Giannantonio has had mixed form on the package.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>Speaking at an event in Indonesia on Tuesday, Morbidelli says he is not sure what spec of bike he will ultimately race until he tests it as he is wary of suffering the same issues Bagnaia and Di Giannantonio have in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s a difficult thing for me because things are not fixed yet,\u201d he said in response to a question from Crash.net.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have still to decide what package we are going to ride next year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor sure, in theory, it\u2019s the GP25. But we know that many riders have had problems with that package, even if that package won the championship.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut we know DiGia sometimes and Pecco many times struggled on it. So, I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFirst of all I would like to try it and then have an idea on it, talk with the team and make my decision on it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNothing is fixed yet. First of all we need to try it, talk with the team first and then Ducati.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>VR46 has clarified that Morbidelli means he will have the best non-official package possible and can run 2024 parts on the GP25 if he chooses, rather than remain on a full GP24.<\/p>\n<p>With engine development frozen for all but Honda and Yamaha for 2026, Ducati\u2019s GP26 will not be a huge change from the current GP25.<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VR46 MotoGP rider Franco Morbidelli says the specification of Ducati package that he will race next year is&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,23688,806,805,803,804,15119,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-182622","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-franco-morbidelli","11":"tag-motor","12":"tag-motor-sports","13":"tag-motosport","14":"tag-motosports","15":"tag-pertamina-enduro-vr46-racing","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}