Alex Marquez: Aldeguer “a great team-mate” at Gresini

Davide Tardozzi caught Ducati’s satellite teams off-guard by confirming to French TV that Fabio di Giannantonio will race a factory-spec GP25 at VR46 next season with Franco Morbidelli arriving as his team-mate (on a GP24).

That also means rookie Fermin Aldeguer, signed to Ducati but without a team, will ride at Gresini alongside Alex Marquez, in place of Marc Marquez, who is heading to the factory team.

Both Gresini riders will be on GP24s next season.

After smiling at Tardozzi spilling the beans, Alex Marquez said: “Yeah, looks like it will be like this.

“For sure [Aldeguer] will be really fast. He has a great talent and hopefully we can make a great job together.

“I think he will be a great team-mate and that we can push each other.”

Alex, currently spending his second Gresini season alongside older brother Marc, played down becoming the team leader while Aldeguer learns the ropes next year.

“[Aldeguer] will be fast. He will not need my advice,” Alex said. “I mean, he will be there.

“But I like to have a rookie that is coming from Moto2… They have a lot of corner speed and all that. So hopefully we can take some profit from that as well.”

Marquez, currently tenth in the world championship, added that he will not seek to change any of his own crew for next season, suggesting Aldeguer will slot into the ex-Marc Marquez team run by Frankie Carchedi.

Alex was speaking after finishing 14th fastest on day one of the British MotoGP, having found that a new set-up from Sachsenring didn’t transfer across to the fast Silverstone track.

“We were struggling - not in the morning but in the afternoon. When people go faster to make the lap time. It was then that I didn't have the feeling to push and to bring the perfect lap home,” Marquez said.

“We are using from Sachsenring a really different setup but we need to rebalance a little bit the bike for here where we need to have some more weight on the front, some more pitching and all that.

“So I’m struggling and tomorrow I think we need to make a step back to have our base because here I think will work much better.”

Marc secured the final top ten place for direct Qualifying 2 access.