One factor you will not hear any MotoGP staff say at this pre-season launch occasion is that they do not anticipate to be aggressive and do not consider they’ve the tools to win. From a PR perspective, we’re not completed but.
However there all the time comes some extent when these robust phrases serve solely as discuss and the extent of believability diminishes.
The VR46 staff’s launch occasion in Rome, the place a revised livery was unveiled for subsequent season, was marked by very rhetoric, however with a sure sense of urgency to proper the ship that had gone astray throughout what ought to have been a way more profitable 2025 season.
From the second it was introduced that Valentino Rossi’s staff would be part of the MotoGP grid for the 2022 season, the staff endured a tough beginning. Tanal Leisure’s announcement that VR46 could be sponsored by Aramco turned out to be false, regardless of Rossi’s camp insisting it might truly occur.
This led to hypothesis that he might need to delay his retirement by a 12 months to be able to run for a brand new staff and safe significant sponsorship. That by no means occurred, and VR46 obtained title sponsorship from Mooney for the primary two seasons.
The undertaking, led by Luca Marini and Marco Bezzecchi, has been developed to offer the expertise of the VR46 Academy with a ultimate vacation spot on the ladder to MotoGP. The Ducati-powered podium success got here in 2022, and Bezzecchi completed third within the standings in 2023 with three wins.
Nonetheless, the 2024 season turned out to be troublesome. The GP23 Ducati was incompatible with Bezzecchi’s using type and he was due to this fact solely in a position to handle one rostrum all year long. The VR46 obtained an extra blow when Bezzecchi was given the chance to affix Aprilia’s manufacturing facility staff.
2025 is the staff’s finest asset, with Franco Morbidelli discovering a house after a tough 2024 for Pramac. Ducati opted to offer manufacturing facility help in 2025 after Fabio Di Giannatonio was given an 11-hour contract to interchange Marini at Honda in 2024, however the GP25 proved inconsistent in all fingers besides that of Marc Marquez.
VR46 failed to satisfy Gresini’s satellite tv for pc Ducati requirements for 2025
Di Giannantonio achieved simply three Grand Prix podiums on a factory-spec Ducati and scored 262 factors. This was simply 26 factors shy of Pecco Bagnaia’s whole. However on condition that Di Giannantonio had not less than two Grand Prix wins, it says extra about what a tumultuous 12 months it was for the 2 world champions than it does about Di Giannantonio’s reliable manufacturing facility staff credentials.
In distinction, Di Giannantonio’s teammate Morbidelli carried out admirably in GP24, scoring a number of Grand Prix podiums early within the marketing campaign. Nonetheless, the 2020 championship runner-up’s season was marred by a collection of on-track accidents, resulting in elevated scrutiny from the FIM judging panel.
After the San Marino Grand Prix, the FIM stewards issued an ultimatum. If he’s discovered responsible of one other on-track violation, he’ll face a pit lane begin. If I did it once more after that, I’d in all probability spend the weekend at dwelling.
This can be a tactic that stewards have discovered helpful for troublesome Moto3 riders. However having a MotoGP rider in that place within the first place ought to be a serious concern for groups.
Morbidelli completed the season simply 31 factors behind Di Giannantonio within the standings. Nonetheless, VR46 was the one Ducati staff with no race win in 2025, with Morbidelli and Di Giannantonio the one two riders from the model who didn’t stand on the highest step of the rostrum. There was a 188 level distinction with Gresini within the staff rankings.
Franco Morbidelli, Jorge Martin, 2025 Catalunya MotoGP
© Gold & Goose
This reality is made all of the extra painful when you think about that Gresini had no help from the manufacturing facility and was utilizing newcomer Fermin Aldeguer. Gresini is at the moment offering manufacturing facility help for Alex Marquez till 2026, leaving him with nowhere to cover this season if the VR46 fails to satisfy that commonplace.
On the VR46 staff presentation held in Rome on Wednesday, staff principal Pablo Nieto mentioned, “It is rather essential for us to be a staff that receives manufacturing facility help from Ducati.” It is going to be a whole lot of strain, however with out strain you’ll be able to’t create something. So this 12 months shall be an essential 12 months for us. ”
However final 12 months was no completely different, so VR46 has to step up its sport.
“I’ve been very fortunate to have all the time raced with Ducati in all my adventures in MotoGP,” mentioned Valentino Rossi. “Ducati has been the perfect bike on the grid for the previous few years, so it gave us an opportunity to win, which we now have had prior to now, however sadly not final 12 months, to combat for a podium and be within the prime three of the staff rankings. However we have to enhance to lift the extent, as a result of final season we had a whole lot of ups and downs.”
Rossi went out of his method to touch upon the staff’s general efficiency. However now, 4 years right into a enterprise that ought to have had extra success primarily based on the mere reality {that a} MotoGP legend (and never only a legend) bears his identify, Rossi’s feedback sound like they’re placing actual strain on the riders.
VR46 might turn out to be a greater expertise vacation spot
Seeking to the speedy future, VR46 Academy is now not in a position to develop expertise able to competing in MotoGP. So we now have to begin positioning ourselves as a vacation spot for larger names from different locations on the present grid.
Pedro Acosta was on the middle of rider market rumors early final season, with each side confirming there have been conversations. Marc Marquez’s season with Gresini and his success made the satellite tv for pc staff a robust vacation spot for riders searching for a aggressive machine.
If the VR46 stays with Ducati into the 850cc period, its storage will home two highly regarded bikes. The extent to which the staff intends to deviate from its philosophy of homegrown expertise is one other query, however the worth of Valentino Rossi’s facet succeeding with massive names could be large.
Morbidelli and Di Giannantonio face an enormous 12 months if VR46 is unwilling to let go of their two present riders.
Di Giannantonio has to date confirmed to be a one-trick pony relating to being a MotoGP race winner. He gained a whole lot of goodwill in his first season at VR46, but when he cannot construct on that in a contract 12 months, he could also be left with few choices elsewhere on the grid.
Morbidelli is certainly an academy expertise, a key determine as the primary world champion and first MotoGP race winner, and would in all probability be the extra well-liked alternative if a choice needed to be made. However since his breakout season in 2020, he has been removed from replicating that. A few of that is not his personal fault, as he suffered accidents in 2021 and was hampered by poor efficiency on Yamaha’s machines for the subsequent few years.
Nonetheless, this shall be his ninth season within the premier class and it’s not unfair to recommend that with out the VR46 he wouldn’t have been on the grid in 2025. The season he had did not name for that.
In fact VR46 might turn out to be well-known in 2027 and He has glorious Italian expertise as a accomplice. Nicolo Brega, a former VR46 Academy rider who nonetheless has relationship with Rossi, has elevated his involvement in MotoGP this 12 months in a testing position. His information of Pirelli tires in World Superbike is a invaluable asset for Ducati and will very effectively lead him to MotoGP’s full-time grid in 2027.
That appears extra prone to be a Ducati satellite tv for pc staff than a manufacturing facility staff, and out of doors of a self-redemption story during which a promising academy expertise leaves Grand Prix and goals to return to the highest class, the VR46 could be match.
Brega could have been using a GP27 prototype utilizing Pirelli rubber for a number of months earlier than the beginning of the 2027 season. That makes him already a greater candidate than Morbidelli or Di Giannantonio, no matter what occurs in 2026.
If VR46 actually needs to win races once more in 2026, Di Giannantonio and Morbidelli’s careers might rely upon proving that circumstances weren’t the one cause Rossi had excessive hopes for them…
