Franco Morbidelli on VR46 debut: “We have this magical thing”
“We have this magical thing and we need to use it”
Franco Morbidelli is eager to leverage his ‘magical’ relationship with VR46 as he slots into Valentino Rossi’s MotoGP team for 2025.
The Italian, the VR46 Academy’s first world champion (Moto2 2017) and MotoGP race winner (2020) is moving across from the Pramac team.
As well as familiar surroundings, Morbidelli is one of the few riders on the grid who will keep the same specification of machine in 2025.
Morbidelli had a factory Desmosedici GP24 at Pramac this year, as taken to the title by team-mate Jorge Martin, but lost all of pre-season testing due to head injuries.
The former Yamaha title runner-up went on to take a Sprint podium at Misano, fourth in the Indonesian GP and ninth in the final standings.
He then made his Pertamina VR46 debut with seventh place (+0.762s) at Tuesday’s Barcelona test.
“Today was important just to get to know the people I'm going to work with next year,” Morbidelli said.
That includes ex-Marco Bezzecchi crew chief Matteo Flamigni, formerly Rossi’s electronic engineer.
“I’ve known many members of the team for years and it's a great honour to be able to work together,” Morbidelli said.
“I've been following Matteo since I was a child, he made history with Vale when he was his electronics engineer and we had a good feeling.”
Morbidelli added: “The admiration I have for all the people inside the team and the knowledge we have with each other - we have this magical thing and we need to use it in the best way.
"We need to use it to bond and connect in the quickest way possible to achieve what we want."
Tuesday's introduction was very much a case of so far, so good.
“It was a great first day,” Morbidelli said. “We did some changes on the bike just to understand what was happening to build knowledge between me and the crew.
“And that's going to make the difference next year. The better we get to know each other in this testing time, the better we're going to act and react in race weekends.
“I like the atmosphere, there's everything you need to do well. We worked hard, I preferred not to put the soft tyre at the end, it was too cold to improve our lap time. Overall a great start.”
And the special leathers?
“Beautiful. I want to take a look at some more images because it was really nice.”
Morbidelli's team-mate Fabio di Giannantonio missed the test due to his recent shoulder surgery.
Peter has been in the paddock for 20 years and has seen Valentino Rossi come and go. He is at the forefront of the Suzuki exit story and Marc Marquez’s injury issues.
