MotoGP 2025 already started in Barcelona last year we still don’t know exactly what it will look like we have some good ideas the rules are basically the same, the main protagonists are more or less the same, the calendar is pretty similar but there are major points of difference that suggest this campaign won’t quite be like the 2024.

Ducati bikes Reduced By 25%

One of the biggest number of bikes in MotoGP right now is the number of the Ducati bikes, more so the number of the bikes overall. Last year there were eight and in One race and in one particular Sprint they finished 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 quite ridiculous. this year this is not possible and it’s it’s quite an important change.

There’s a there’s a two fold reason why this is quite interesting for one it removes two of the the dominant bikes in the grid, there’s 25% less Ducatis to be at the front every weekend which has become essentially the norm, it’s become what we’ve expected every weekend so without that in the mix, it’s something a little bit different.

But it also means considerably less data coming into the factory team in particular, because there’s 25% less bikes in the grid, there’s one 2025 spec Factory machine in the grid so there’s a whole change in the dynamic. They will have less of an advantage than they’ve had the last few years simply because they don’t have that same kind of one third of the grid that they’ve enjoyed for so long

Two bikes might not seem like a massive difference but you know in in a game that’s as close is as it is right now, in a championship where we are talking about one tenth of a second, it’s enough to make at least a little bit of a difference and to at least bring the the chasing pack a little bit closer to them.

This is always talked about as a key Ducati advantage, Ducati senior figures have talked down the importance of losing two bikes but they have talked up the importance of the Riders they’re losing and Pramac has gone, Pramac has been a long time Ally of ducati. Pramac is the team that ducati is most used working with however at the same time what might help Ducati is the lack of development for 25 compared to 24 

We’ve heard from ducati Tech boss GiGi Dall’lagna that the difference in Spec is not supposed to be as as big as it was before, and that has serious ramifications for what the year old bikes can achieve yeah absolutely on paper it means that we should have  season like the 2023 season, where we expected the 22 bikes were right at the sharp End, early on still remain close enough to allow Michael Bazi to fight for a championship right up until almost the end of the season. 

It’s not unrealistic that we’re going to see something similar in 2025. The only real concern would be that maybe the Ducati field is lacking in the strength of depth that it’s had the past few seasons and that might affect them more than anything else.

there are riders like Alex Marquez that you can see being a regular Podium threat but he’s very inconsistent, he’s not going to fight for a Championship, and it comes down to can Fabio Di Giannantonio be the wild card, can he be the one that gets in the mix and fights with the guys until the end of the season, because I can’t really see Marquez, Franco morbelli and I especially can’t see rookie Forin doing it on the the other three bikes

Continuity of the Rear Tire

Much of The Ducati 2024 advantage has been attributed to the introduction of a new Michelin rear tire now, this year we were briefly supposed to get new Michelin front, that is now not happening. You’d think then that this is not a big change, obviously you know the tires stay generally the same but in fact Tire continuity is a huge change in itself, because it allows all the manufacturers that got the adaptation to this new tire wrong to to make amends. 

It means that  the other manufacturers the ones that struggled with this new rear tire can now actually build a bike that works for it. Instead of trying to to figure out how to do that with The Limited number of tests. and we saw in the end, complete misreading of the data that they got from those tests, they now have a full season to play with they should be able to make something that works a bit better with this tire. 

We should see them start the season in a stronger position because they’ve got that bit of continuity, they’ve got that bit of awareness of what they needed to bring, doing it of course it’s not just a case of oh we’ve got this data so now we can obviously build a motor bike that uses it, but it’s definitely a lot more of a promising situation than they were in 9 months ago.

Engine Freeze For 2 Years

We were just starting to realize the the implications of this new rear tire, we’ve got an engine freeze kicking in, to see through this set of regulations and that’s of course more important maybe for 26 than for 25 because already in modern MotoGP, there’s an engine freeze for a year, just this one will span two years instead. but it’s it is also the last chance for every manufacturer that has any sort of engine problem to catch up unless you’re a concession manufacturer like Honda and Yamaha

The engine freeze might not have a significant impact on 2025 simply because they two manufacturers that are still struggling to develop an engine, the other two are not that far away, it’s going to take really kind of a Monumental misstep rather than a lack of development from the likes of KTM to get this wrong.

The new Ducati motor seems to be pretty much on par with where they left off at the end of 2024 from what we saw on testing, I don’t think it’s it’s going to struggle, it’s not going to leave anyone  behind too much and in fact it might actually come as a bit of a relief to KTM in particular, given that it’s one last thing to develop amid ongoing financial problems so the big the big engine news isn’t necessarily the freeze for us it’s what what Yamaha has cooking up.

All eyes are going to be on when Yamaha bring the new V4 engine, and terms of of development news coming into the 25 season, we’re not expecting to see it until the middle of the year. When we see it we’re going to see a whole new bike come with it, that’s the one of the reasons for making this step, the V4 configuration is completely different shape, it’s narrower it can mean for a smaller more compact bike format so Yamaha going to have to make big changes

whenever it comes, they’ve said they’re not going to do that until they feel like the V4 is at least as fast as the current bike, that could take a while it could happen in time for preseason testing, we just don’t know yet but it it’s certainly got the potential to be one of the most interesting storylines of the season in terms of technical developments.