Ducati MotoGP chief designer Gigi Dall'Igna says the new Desmosedici bike for 2025 isn't supposed to bring as big a step as this year’s did relative to the 2023 version.
Dall'Igna correctly forecast at the end of last season that the Ducati GP24 would be a substantial upgrade over the GP23 - something proven by Pecco Bagnaia and Jorge Martin monopolising the title battle despite Marc Marquez being on a year-old Ducati.
Reminded of that projection by The Race and asked to make a similar comment in regards to the 2025 bike, Dall'Igna said: "Honestly speaking, at this time the GP25 does not have the same step forward.
"Honestly, the level of the GP24 at the moment is quite high, and if you introduce a lot of differences between the two bikes, you have to take some risks.
"At the moment, I think that is not necessary."
Dall'Igna said it was "for sure" possible to improve on the GP24, despite the incredible season it'd had.
"I think that we have to improve a little bit the speed of the bike on the straights, because some of our competitors are really stronger than us in that point,” he argued.
"And I would like to improve a little bit also the speed in the middle of the corner."
He said the 2025 bike - which the works riders Bagnaia and Marquez will sample on Tuesday - can also be "a little bit" of an improvement in terms of tyre wear, even if that was not a development direction priority given Ducati's already the class leader in that regard.
He also offered another clue on the 2025 design: "I think that the braking point and the braking stability of the bike is one of the keys, because to overtake the others is really difficult. You need to have this on the bike."
A 2025 prototype chassis was already sampled by Bagnaia in September’s Misano test, and he'd liked it enough to be willing to take it on for the rest of the season - but this didn't happen as Ducati couldn't supply it to all four GP24 riders.
The one thing that worries Dall'Igna
Ducati's data-sharing policy among its works team and customer outfits, combined with having eight bikes on the grid, has been cited as a major strength and potentially even the biggest factor in its current MotoGP dominance.
The departure of long-time partner Pramac to Yamaha in 2025 will reduce the number of Ducatis on the grid from eight to six next year, but Dall'Igna made it clear this isn't his biggest worry coming into next season.
Instead, it's that Ducati’s had to give up both new champion Martin - signed by Aprilia - and Enea Bastianini - off to Tech3 KTM. Both left the Ducati fold once Marquez was picked for the 2025 works seat.
"The real problem is that other manufacturers have better riders," Dall’Igna said. "In the past you saw some bikes - for example when Aprilia made a step from two bikes to four [by adding RNF as a partner team] and anyway the results were more or less the same. I don’t think that to have only six bikes on the grid, six riders, will be a real problem for us.
"The real problem is that Martin is leaving for another company, and also Enea. This is the real problem."
But he made it clear he had no regrets over the decision to pair Bagnaia up with Marquez and the rider market dominoes that followed.
"When I took this decision, for sure we thought quite a lot. Also we thought that Martin could win the championship this year. So, this is something that we evaluated, and we took the decision.
"So... I don't change my idea at the moment, and I'm convinced that we have the best possible solution for the Ducati riders."
The fact Dall'Igna hints the GP25 and the GP24 are similar packages should present data-sharing advantages - while Ducati has also felt comfortable enough in reducing the number of current-spec entries in its roster from four to three.
VR46 rider Fabio Di Giannantonio will be the third rider on a current-spec bike next year, while Alex Marquez (Gresini), Franco Morbidelli (VR46) and rookie Fermin Aldeguer (Gresini) - a rider Dall'Igna reiterated his faith in despite a patchy Moto2 season - on hand-me-down GP24s.
"Because, from a money point of view, this is the best solution," Dall'Igna insisted. "Three bikes, you can switch the three into the next season [to serve as the year-old bikes].
"It's simply better for the economics point of view. And on the technical point of view it's not a real advantage to have four factory bikes instead of three."
