Will the Marc Marquez of old turn up at the factory Ducati MotoGP team?

Marc Marquez steps up to the factory Ducati MotoGP team in 2025 alongside double world champion Francesco Bagnaia.

Eight-time world champion Marquez made his debut on the factory-spec Ducati last week at the post-season Barcelona test and was fourth fastest behind his new team-mate.

After a 2024 season spent with the satellite Gresini squad on year-old machinery, on which he still won three grands prix, Marquez is expected to fight for a ninth world title next year.

But the Marquez that dominated MotoGP on the Honda is quite different to the rider he is now, after going through his injury woes in 2020.

So just how will Marquez approach his return to a factory team in 2024?

“I think clearly from the get go, even from the moment he jumped on that bike last November, the goal was clearly get back to a factory team, get to that factory Ducati,” Crash Senior Journalist Lewis Duncan says.

“And I think the way we saw him handle his future earlier in the year, there was a very clear vision of what he wanted to happen.

“I think the Marquez we’ll see next year won’t be like the factory Honda version, because the factory Honda team and factory Ducati are just two quite different propositions anyway.

“But we will see a much more serious side to Marquez, because regardless of what he says about taking it step by step, the expectation will be to fight for the champion.

“If he can do what he did on a GP23, that really was long in the tooth by the time the chequered flag fell in Barcelona, on the brand-new factory bike that looks like it’s taken another big step forward, if you listen to what Pecco Bagnaia has said.

“I think there will be a more serious Marc there, but one who will be a bit more considered in his approach to racing because he’s spoken about it before that when he was winning races pre-injury he took it for granted.

“Now he’s gone through what he has, every win means a little bit more and that’s something that will come with the factory move, that every big result is a big day.

“I think keeping ahold of that side of things and keeping that enjoyment of racing will only elevate him.”

Crash Social Media Manager and podcast host Jordan Moreland adds: “The combined experience of having that atmosphere, he loves racing, and the people around him almost buy into it with him, I think he will be able to do it at Ducati.

“It’s looking at the other side of the garage, too, because with Bagnaia it’s his team. Ducati has been his team for the past few years and, it’s a bit different to compare, but Marquez went to Repsol Honda as a rookie at Dani Pedrosa’s side, where Casey Stoner was probably the guy because he was beating Pedrosa.

“It’s a bit different now because he’s older, you see his emotions a bit more now, he’s able to really tell you how he is.

“Marquez of old had the same look: he wouldn’t give anything away. How does that approach work going into going into Bagnaia’s team?

“We’ve only seen it for a day in testing, but he’s going to have to maybe play the game a bit longer and wait for his moment to lay his authority down.”

Peter McLaren, Crash’s MotoGP Editor sees similarities between where Marquez is at now in his career and Valentino Rossi in the latter stages of his time in MotoGP.

“It’s interesting when you look back like that and you remember how long Marc has been in MotoGP.

“Things change, riders change as well. Marc’s now 31, he’s a veteran.

“He’s changed from the super explosive, fast rider of the early years, just as Valentino Rossi went through that evolution.

“He had that bad injury, but let’s face it, if you’re going to race in MotoGP for that long you’re going to get injured at some stage.

“So, it was always going to happen at some stage. And this evolution where the experience replaces the speed.

“We saw it for Rossi, you can still fight for titles - Rossi came close in 2015. And that’s where Marc is at in his career, and we saw that this year, where he wasn’t going all out, he was finishing a lot more races.

“He had a lot of accidents, but they were in practice, and he was head and shoulders clear of the others guys on the same bike.

“I think that’s what we’re seeing, we’re seeing that evolution of Marc as a rider.”