Alex Marquez needs to “take profit” from 2025 MotoGP upgrade

The 2025 MotoGP World Championship will present an opportunity to Alex Marquez that the Gresini Ducati rider says he needs “to take profit from”.

Marquez will stick with the Gresini team he joined in 2023 next year for a third team with the Italian outfit, but will also get an upgrade in machinery as he switches from the Desmosedici GP23 to the GP24, which has won 15 of 19 Grands Prix so far in 2024.

In reality, though, Marquez will still be a year behind compared to the Ducati riders on factory contracts which guarantee them up-to-date motorcycles in 2025: Fabio Di Giannantonio of the VR46 team, and both Marc Marquez and Francesco Bagnaia of the factory Ducati team.

The new specification rear tyre that Michelin introduced for 2024 meant that it was less the case this season, but historically speaking the trend has been that the first part of a season is the chance for the satellite teams to take advantage of their updated, but still year-old, machinery and the data that was collected for it in the previous season, before the factory teams begin finding more gains with their all-new bikes.

“We need to take profit from that,” Marquez said on the Thursday before the Thai Grand Prix at Buriram on the prospect of stepping from the GP23 to the GP24.

Marquez was cautious, though, noting that, while GP24 is dominant at the moment, it’s impossible to know now how the other manufacturers will develop over the winter and into the beginning of next season.

“There will be two Ducatis less on the grid, but also it’s good for us.

“But also when you are a satellite team and you know that you will have a proper bike, in the first three or four races you don’t have a real target because you don’t know how much the other manufacturers will improve.

“So, it will depend on that.”