Tardozzi: Ducati MotoGP “dream team” tough to beat next year
"We will leave some top guys to other brands, but I honestly think we have a dream team"
While acknowledging the loss of new MotoGP world champion Jorge Martin, plus Enea Bastianini and Marco Bezzecchi to rival brands, Davide Tardozzi is sure that Ducati’s Desmosedici and ‘dream team’ rider line-up will be tough to beat next year.
Replacing Bastianini alongside double MotoGP champion Francesco Bagnaia will be six time premier-class winner Marc Marquez.
The Spaniard has heard the ‘dream team’ tag before, when triple MotoGP champion Jorge Lorenzo joined him at Repsol Honda in 2019.
That ‘dream team’ didn’t work out well for Lorenzo, to put it mildly, and perhaps explains why Marquez seems to be deferring to Bagnaia now he is the rider joining another champion’s team.
“Now I am in a situation I have never experienced before, which is to arrive in a pit box and, although there is no number one and number two, logically there is a status and the one who calls the shots is Pecco,” Marquez said recently.
“Why? Because Pecco is the one who has given two world titles to Ducati, the one who won eleven races last year and logically, he has to be the one who calls the shots this pre-season and in the first few races.”
The big difference between the Lorenzo-to-Honda situation is that Marquez already has a season under his belt on a Ducati, taking three wins with the year-old satellite bike at Gresini this year.
“We will leave some top guys to other brands, but in the end, I honestly think we have a dream team,” Tardozzi told MotoGP.com. "Pecco and Marc are incredible riders.
"I think we will manage a good collaboration between the two riders and I think we will be the team to beat next year.
“I know other brands are growing on the technical side and with their rider line-ups. But in the end, I think the Ducati bike and the Ducati factory team will be very tough [to beat] next year.”
Ducati lost only one Sunday grand prix out of the 20 rounds this year, with the factory spec GP24 accounting for 16 of its 19 wins.
“We have to take time during the winter to make the right steps [with the new GP25] because the 2024 is a really competitive bike and it will be not so easy to make a step forward,” Tardozzi said.
“On the other hand, we know that our competitors will be very strong on the rider side next year. The two Aprilia guys, Bezzecchi and Jorge, will be very tough, Vinales and Bastianini will improve the KTM riders.
“So on one side we are happy, but we have the ‘antenna really straight’ [staying alert]!”
GP24s will be raced next season by the new Gresini line-up of rookie Fermin Aldeguer and Alex Marquez, plus Franco Morbidelli at VR46.
Morbidelli’s team-mate Fabio di Giannantonio will receive the other factory GP25.
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.
