{"id":357279,"date":"2025-12-19T01:48:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T01:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/357279\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T01:48:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T01:48:16","slug":"why-ducati-had-no-doubt-that-alex-marquez-deserved-factory-motogp-bike-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/357279\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Ducati had no doubt that Alex Marquez \u201cdeserved” factory MotoGP bike in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the very start of the 2025 MotoGP season, when\u00a0Alex\u00a0Marquez<\/a> strung together three consecutive second-place finishes in Thailand, Argentina and the United States, one question followed him everywhere: \u2018Would he receive upgrades on his GP24?\u2019<\/p>\n

The younger Marquez\u2019s answer was always the same, as the contract between\u00a0Ducati\u00a0and his team Gresini Racing<\/a> did not stipulate any upgrades. \u201cIf an upgrade for the 2024 bike arrives, it will come for everyone at the same time,\u201d he said, in reference to himself, team-mate Fermin Aldeguer<\/a> and VR46\u2019s Franco Morbidelli<\/a>, all of whom were riding year-old machinery.<\/p>\n

Those upgrades never came, aside from a minor tweak very late in the season.<\/p>\n

Despite riding old equipment and lacking factory rider status, Marquez continued to prove that his strong early results were no fluke, claiming his first premier class victory at the Spanish GP – the fifth stop on the calendar – to take the lead of the world championship at that moment, one point ahead of his elder brother Marc Marquez<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It would not be his last win.\u00a0Alex\u00a0Marquez also triumphed in Barcelona and Malaysia and, above all, delivered the consistency that kept him second in the standings throughout the year. Even when he hit a rough patch after picking up an injury at Assen when he collided with Pedro Acosta<\/a>, had another crash in Brno and recorded his two worst results of the year in Austria and Hungary while still nursing the injury, he held on to second position in the standings.<\/p>\n

Later in the year, Marquez recovered and reached his best level again, taking two wins and five podiums in the last seven races of the year – enough to secure the runner-up position.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlex\u00a0Marquez recorded an important evolution that placed him among the absolute protagonists, undoubtedly deserving the official bike for next season,\u201d\u00a0Ducati\u2019s racing chief Gigi Dall\u2019Igna wrote in his annual season summary.<\/p>\n

\"Marc <\/p>\n

Marc Marquez, Ducati Team, Alex Marquez, Gresini Team<\/p>\n

Photo by: Vertical<\/p>\n

A bike like Marc Marquez\u2019s<\/p>\n

While it is true that\u00a0Ducati\u00a0was bound by an agreement with VR46, which had priority over a second full-factory GP26 for 2026, the high cost of running two latest-spec machines, combined with Morbidelli\u2019s inconsistency, led Valentino Rossi<\/a>\u2019s team to decline the second bike.\u00a0Ducati\u00a0immediately saw this as an opportunity to reward Marquez\u2019s great season, even if Gresini ultimately had to agree to increase its financial contribution to secure that GP26.<\/p>\n

In this way,\u00a0Alex\u00a0Marquez will ride an identical bike to factory\u00a0Ducati\u00a0duo Marc Marquez and Francesco Bagnaia<\/a>, as well as VR46\u2019s Fabio Di Giannantonio<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as rider status goes, it won\u2019t change much,\u201d\u00a0Ducati\u00a0sources told Motorsport.com. \u201cAlex\u00a0remains a rider under contract with a private team, Gresini, but he will have a bike and equipment identical to the factory riders. On a human level, nothing will change – he will have his technical crew and the same Ducati staff allocation in his box as he has had until now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Marquez\u2019s strong season and VR46\u2019s decision to forego the second bike happened simultaneously, Ducati\u00a0was under no obligation to supply a full factory bike to Gresini. But the 29-year-old\u2019s progression has been so obvious that doing otherwise would have been like shooting itself in the foot, especially with Bagnaia failing to meet the expectations of a two-time world champion this year.<\/p>\n

Bringing Marc and\u00a0Alex\u00a0together at\u00a0Ducati\u00a0\u201cnot the priority\u201d<\/p>\n

While many hope that the Marquez brothers will be reunited at the factory\u00a0Ducati\u00a0team<\/a> in 2027, the brand insists that \u201cit\u2019s very unlikely that will happen as it doesn\u2019t fit\u00a0Ducati\u2019s philosophy,\u201d which is more focused on fostering \u201cfierce\u201d competition between team-mates.<\/p>\n

Marc Marquez also downplayed the idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course I\u2019d like it, but it\u2019s not the priority. I need to see what\u2019s best for me sportingly and what\u2019s best for\u00a0Alex, depending on the projects that may arise\u201d, he said in an interview with El Periodico.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am the champion and\u00a0Alex\u00a0is the runner-up, so he will also have more than one offer, and then each of us will have to consider things selfishly. If we can coincide, I\u2019d be delighted. Who could be a better team-mate than your brother? But I see it as difficult – these are things you don\u2019t seek out.\u201d<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From the very start of the 2025 MotoGP season, when\u00a0Alex\u00a0Marquez strung together three consecutive second-place finishes in Thailand,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[8454,64,63,10735,5745,806,805,803,804,85,195567],"class_list":["post-357279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-alex-marquez","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-gresini-racing","tag-motogp","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports","tag-why-ducati-had-no-doubt-that-alex-marquez-u201cdeserved-factory-motogp-bike-in-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357279","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=357279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}