Valentino Rossi’s VR46 team will take over from Pramac as Ducati’s top-level satellite MotoGP squad from 2025 in a ‘multi-year’ deal.
That deal means VR46 will get the only 2025-spec Ducati available to a satellite team next year, and it’s likely to go to its current rider Fabio Di Giannantonio while VR46 Academy graduate Franco Morbidelli returns to Rossi’s fold as his team-mate but gets a year-old bike.
The likely rider line-up was not announced with the VR46/Ducati deal, but factory Ducati team manager Davide Tardozzi indicated to French TV channel Canal+ that it is the intention.
VR46 team principal Uccio Salucci expressed his huge pride at his squad becoming Ducati’s lead satellite in what will be only its fourth proper MotoGP season.
“If they had said it a few years ago, I wouldn't have believed it,” said Salucci.
“It's a truly significant moment for the entire group: having achieved this result in just three years, with a young team, with so many guys with us from Moto3, is something extraordinary.”
Ducati needed a new ‘official’ satellite team following Pramac’s decision to switch to a long-term Yamaha deal.
Pramac currently runs two 2024 spec bikes for Jorge Martin and Morbidelli, but Ducati has decided to reduce the production of its latest design to just three GP25s (two for the factory team, one for VR46) after Pramac’s exit, with the other VR46 entry and Gresini getting GP24s.
And, with VR46 having previously run a single factory-spec machine for Luca Marini in 2022, it comes as no surprise that it got the nod for the 2025 bike over Gresini.
"From day one, the VR46 Racing team has shown its ability to work in perfect harmony with Ducati, and in recent years, we achieved important results together,” added Ducati Corse boss Gigi Dall’Igna.
“We are happy, therefore, to be able to fortify our relationship further, providing the Pesaro-based team with full factory support starting next season. I am sure that together we can achieve other significant goals.”
JUST THREE 2025 DUCATIS
But cutting to three 2025 bikes completes a major shift in the size and strength of Ducati’s presence on the MotoGP grid.
This year it fields eight bikes, four 2024-spec and four 2023s, across four teams, and its partnership with Pramac set a new tone for how seriously factories supported their satellites.
But next season Ducati will have fewer latest-spec bikes on the grid than any other manufacturer. Aprilia, KTM, Honda and Yamaha’s customer teams are all likely to get versions of the 2025 designs, even if they’re not the exact same spec as the factory teams’.
The sheer quality of the 2024 Ducati that Morbidelli and the Gresini riders get may make that a moot point, though, given that bike’s form this season and the consequent likelihood that the GP25 won’t be as big a step on from the GP24 design as the GP23/GP24 difference that’s so frustrating Marc Marquez on his 2023 bike at Gresini this year.
DUCATI LINE-UP NOW FULL
The likely confirmation of Di Giannantonio (who had been a target for other teams including Pramac Yamaha and earlier Aprilia too) and Morbidelli at VR46 effectively completes Ducati’s full 2025 line-up.
It had already signed up Moto2 frontrunner Fermin Aldeguer for a 2025 MotoGP ride before the season even started without confirming his team beyond that he would start with a year-old bike.
Tardozzi’s swift comments about Morbidelli’s VR46 move rule that team out as Aldeguer’s home (despite VR46 showing interest in Aldeguer itself at the end of last season) and mean he’ll be Marc Marquez’s replacement at Gresini. Marquez’s brother Alex has already extended his contract there.
It also closes off any remote hopes any other out-of-contract riders in the field - such as likely Pramac signing Miguel Oliveira and the potential ride-less Jack Miller - might have had of getting a Ducati for 2025.
BUT HOW LONG WILL VR46 STAY?
It's not yet clear how long VR46’s “multi-year” Ducati deal actually runs for - something that could have further repercussions for Ducati down the line.
MotoGP’s major 2027 rule changes are likely to bring BMW into the field, and with Rossi’s close links to BMW - he is part of its sportscar programme's driver line-up in the World Endurance Championship - there have been persistent rumours that VR46 is already being courted as part of a four-bike BMW effort to launch its MotoGP project.
