Marc Marquez Reveals Engine Challenges For Ducati That May See It Revert To 2024 Engine

Saajan Jogia | Feb 12, 2025

Apr 14, 2024; Austin, TX, USA; Marc Marquez (93) of Spain and Gresini Racing MotoGP before the MotoGP Grand Prix of The Americas at Circuit of The Americas. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images / Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

Factory Ducati rider Marc Marquez has revealed that the team will likely use the 2024 engine on the 2025 MotoGP bike, the GP25. The Spaniard explained after the first day of the Buriram test that the new engine has weak areas that remain a concern, a point that Ducati may not want to risk, especially when the development freeze kicks in from the start of the 2025 season, meaning non-concession manufacturers won't be able to make changes to the engine until 2027.

Thus, Ducati will mostly utilize its powerful and proven engine from the GP24 to be on the safe side this season. Marquez described the new 2025 engine as being strong in many aspects but it also features weak areas, a factor that could make the outfit vulnerable to performance threats from its rivals. Explaining the current concern about the new engine and revealing plans to likely use last year's engine, Marquez said:

“I mean one thing is the engine and the other thing is all the small pieces that we have, new pieces.

“Today basically we concentrated most of the day to 2024 engine, because looks like if tomorrow doesn’t change a lot, it looks like it is the way [for the season].

“Why? Because Ducati is very realistic and they know, and they are very smart, that we cannot take the risk to homologate an engine that if we are not 100, 100% sure is better than 2024 because if we homologate the engine we homologate it for two years.

“So, we understand from the first day to today that the 2025 is a little bit more up and down: very strong in some points, [but has] very weak points.

“So, they have the experience to use the 2024 in different race tracks.

“They won 16 races last year, so that means that the bike was in a very good base.

“And it looks like now we are going into that base, but tomorrow we will reconfirm.

“But I feel super good on 2024 base. When I say 2024, it’s the 2024 bike. It’s the base of 2024, the engine, but they work a lot on very small items that we are introducing to that engine now.”

While Marquez was the fastest on the first day, his teammate Francesco Bagnaia finished eighth. Bagnaia spoke along similar lines about the new engine and admitted seeing no signs of improvement on it in the future. He added:

“Honestly, it’s a very difficult choice and in this moment we are both leaning, and the team also, in the same direction: to go with the 2024 engine.

“Just because, not that the 2025 is not competitive, but we are still struggling to find a balance on braking and it would be like a ‘limbo’ to start the season with an engine that we are not finding any solution to solve this problem.

“Apart from that, we are lucky that today Marc [Marquez] didn’t have any issues because from my side of the garage today nothing worked from the start of the day.

“We had many problems and luckily my team did a fantastic job to give to me a little possibility of riding, but today from the start of the day nothing was working.”