It’s kinda weird doing a “Run-In” post for MotoGP when you forget that we’re not even halfway through the 2024 season. Remember when this season was meant to be 22 races and now we’re down to 20? Oof.
Anyway, welcome to the run-in for MotoGP, and in this edition of the mini-series, I’m going to go manufacturer by manufacturer and try to make sense of the teams, the riders, any silly season negotiations we can talk about, and ultimately, where everyone’s at as we enter the season’s mid-way point.
First up… *sighs*…
Honda – “Well… it can’t get any worse.”
We keep making this mistake. The mistake is having hope that this will be the year that Honda turns things around. It’s not happening any time soon and there are no signs they’re on the up.
Honda has 24 points as a manufacturer in the nine races of 2024. They’ve not finished a Grand Prix higher than 12th so far this season. Half of their points have come through Johann Zarco.
And when I say there’s been nothing, I mean NOTHING. No hope. No morsel of hope to cling onto. Nothing where you can say: “But they have… this!”. Nope. This is Honda at absolute rock bottom and they’re about to sink even lower. Repsol, the oil sponsor that’s been tied to the brand since 1995, is almost certainly going at the end of the season. The true end of an era and the last real image of their former dominance, are gone.
They threw the house at Luca Marini at the last minute of 2023 to tie him down, teasing a move that felt like Valentino Rossi’s… half-brother was coming home. He has one point so far this season. It’s been an absolute disaster. Fundamentally, it’s an opposite riding style that the Italians failed to adapt to. The Ducati makes all its time via its incredible planted rear grip. The Honda traditionally has made its time on the front tyre. And that’s not as dependable a trick on Michelin rubber compared to the Bridgestones of yesteryear. So for Marini… it’s been a real struggle.
Joan Mir alongside him the factory team has been better. A few fringe points here and there, an unthinkable ninth in Catalunya’s sprint, but another victim of Honda’s knife-edge bikes meaning crashes. Four in GP’s alone, and at one point the former World Champion was worried his body might not be able to take much more punishment. He’s signed a new two-year extension, if, for no other reason, there is just nothing better out there that doesn’t involve another slab of risk, like the new customer Aprilia at Trackhouse for example. Everything else is more or less tied up. It’s either stay and try and figure this shit out, or likely be out of the sport altogether and see if someone in World Superbikes takes you. This man won a World Championship three and a half years ago. Now he’s tied down to scraps.
Not much to say about LCR that hasn’t already been said. Johann Zarco has been exactly what we thought he was going to be – a solid stable rider to have in a core, but he’s not good enough to put the whole thing on his back. He and Mir being at about the same place is about what I expected. Taka Nakagami seems like he’s finally had enough of the situation and venting his frustration at essentially being Honda’s guinea pig. They’ve thrown all the experiments at the world at the Honda with him on the bike and nothing has worked.
I may be making another mistake, but Honda signing Aleix Espargaro to be their test rider for 2025 is a smart move. Aleix has made a career out of making the best out of subpar, poor machinery. It’s probably an impossible task here, but I can think of no better rider for the job of being there for the long haul and trying to figure it out. Aprilia owes him a huge debt of gratitude for their success, maybe he can do the same there.
But can you blame me for being sceptical? This is a team in disarray. They’ve thrown out every trick in the book and nothing has worked. This whole bike needs to be scrapped so the team can try and figure out the 2027 regulations and try to hit the ground running there. Anything beyond that is a bonus because this bike is a donkey. And seeing Honda like this makes me sad. So sad.
Yamaha – “The magic is coming soon, we promise.”
It’s another end-of-an-era moment over with neighbours Yamaha. After 26 years as team boss, Lin Jarvis is stepping down, likely into retirement given he’s now in his Mid-60s. And I love that in his final season with the team, he’s made moves to secure the team’s future.
The first big objective was making sure that Fabio Quartararo was tied down until the end of the regulation set, and they were able to convince him to do so, early. There’s a lot of optimism in that camp that they’re going to turn things around and Yamaha are seemingly working around the clock to get it figured out.
The other major objective was to secure a satellite partner again after losing the artists now known as Trackhouse to Aprilia. They had to open a war chest to convince Pramac to take them up on their offer – A seven-year agreement, bikes for free, rider salaries paid for, future ownership of their Moto2 team AND equal technical partners. It’ll lead to millions of dollars a year saved for Pramac and for an independent team, that’s priceless, especially when Ducati treat riding their bikes like a privilege. Don’t let the poor performances on paper fool you, Yamaha is dead-ass serious about getting back into contention.
Their factory squad’s performance still isn’t there. Fabio Quartararo is trying his best to lead the Japanese Cup (derogatory), but the only non-Japanese team riders he’s ahead of in the standings are Augusto Fernandez and Jack Miller, who have both been poor this season on better KTM machinery. There have been a couple of weekends and Sprints where he can hold his own, but the Yamaha is still struggling to be able to pass bikes in dirty air, even with the extra power, because the rideability of the Yamaha, normally its ace in the hole, has been compromised to facilitate Fabio’s pushes for more power.
As for Alex Rins… he’s struggling out here. Just eight points on the year and second bottom of all the full-timers. I don’t know how much he’s still struggling with his reconstructed leg and the combination of another relatively slow Japanese bike (At least this one isn’t trying to kill him), but he’s not been quick out there. The talk is he’s getting an extension so I’m glad he’s getting the time to try and adapt and see him at his best, but if you didn’t know any better, this feels like it could be another “Morbidelli” situation where Yamaha might have to push for someone else in future. Which would be a shame given we KNOW how good Rins can be.
Yamaha has made a lot of moves that should put them in good stead for the future. Quartararo and Rins is a hell of a team on paper, one of the strongest in the field. They finally have a technical partner again to help them develop the M1, and I think Pramac are due some good riders to help with that in the future. A fitting way for one of the greatest Lin Jarvis to pass the torch to the next generation. But the right now still isn’t good, and Yamaha is a long way off where they need to be. Let’s see what that promising future looks like.
KTM – “Building The Fleet”
It’s just not happening for KTM right now is it? A lot of the early season was spent rightly gushing over the hot start of Pedro Acosta in the Tech3 camp. He was battling with Marc Marquez briefly on debut and quickly followed it up by becoming the third youngest podium sitter in GP history, before his 20th birthday. Heck, he’s still sixth in the Championship right now and ahead of KTM figurehead Brad Binder by two points, and that in itself is asking questions of just how good has Binder been in the last few years, even if Acosta’s hype has cooled a tad with a couple of DNF’s and some quieter finishes as of late. But in any case, KTM has its generational prospect and he’s every bit as good as anticipated. So much so, that KTM gave him a factory promotion for 2025 almost on sight.
But on the other side of the coin, it’s another season that’s proving that the Austrian factory still isn’t there yet. On a good day, they can still challenge the best that Ducati has to offer. But there are still many more days where they’re nowhere to be found amongst the big points-paying positions. Even the new carbon-fibre chassis hasn’t had the desired effect in terms of development and they’ve spent the first half of the year struggling over their rear-end chatter issues that Ducati were able to solve by Europe.
And it’s brought out some of the worst in their current riders. As said before, Augusto Fernandes has likely ridden himself out of the top flight with a poor season, the 2024 KTM not giving him that consistency he liked on the 23’ machine. And Jack Miller cannot save his tires anymore and it’s butchering his races. Miller is 73 points behind teammate Binder in the standings through nine races and that’s just unacceptable. Miller’s been very honest in his lack of approaches for the future, but he’s not done anything this season to warrant people batting for him. Mind you, as a headline rider in World Superbikes…
And that’s just it, 2025 KTM is a FLEET. The strongest four-rider roster in the sport. Brad Binder, your talisman since coming into the top flight. Pedro Acosta, a phenom and still only 20. And then with Tech3, Enea Bastianini, who made Gresini a contender before Marc Marquez made it cool, and Maverick Vinales, with 10 top-flight wins to his name. That’s an insanely strong line-up, but it also means KTM has no excuses left. It has title contenders, youth and experience in its roster. It has to produce a bike now worthy of competing on all tracks and all fronts. It’s thrown bucketloads of cash and ran through a lot of solid riders to get to this position It needs to execute. Now.
Aprilia – “All In.”
In some weird ways, Aprilia feels like a carbon copy of KTM. They’re a little better in terms of outright performance, but Acosta was so good for the first few rounds of the season that Aprilia’s only up by 10 points as a manufacturer, and they’re the only non-Dukes to win a Grand Prix this year!
It’s a familiar tale of a different kid with Aprilia. They have an extremely peaky package that on good days and low-grip conditions, they’re incredible. But on more conventional tracks, they still can’t keep up with the Ducati, even with the extra downforce their bike is very good at generating.
Maverick Vinales’ season is the poster boy for all the good and bad in Aprilia’s camp. I genuinely think he’s back to something near his best. He’s 5th in the Championship, has only been out of the points once all year, is the highest non-Ducati in the Championship, had that incredible win at COTA despite dropping to 11th off of Turn 1, and he’s leaving at the end of the year despite the team wanting him to stay. Why? By the time he got to Jerez, he was frustrated the team wasn’t able to replicate the feelings he had when he won and that was enough for him to start looking elsewhere, and now why we know he’s going to be a KTM rider for 2025 via Tech3.
And now we know that Aleix Espargaro is retiring from full-time competition at year’s end, and Aprilia’s clearing the decks. And they’ve gone all out to push Ducati on riding talent alone. You could argue they were the biggest winners of the Marc Marquez move, because it opened the door for them to swoop in and sign Jorge Martin a day later. There’s still a reasonable chance that Aprilia will have the World Champion in their camp the day after Valencia ends.
Alongside Martin, Massimo Rivola wanted a homegrown rider, and they finally got their man in Marco Bezzecchi alongside Martin. For me, this feels like a very “boom or bust” kind of lineup. Jorge Martin is one of the fastest riders we’ve ever seen for raw speed, but we have no idea how he’ll adapt to a very different and no getting around it, slower Aprilia on paper. Bez was superb in 2023 dominantly winning three Grand Prix and mounting a title campaign right up until he broke his collarbone in a training wreck.
But his 2024 has told a very different story, struggling to adapt to the different engine braking that the GP23 has, and not being able to adapt his riding style to it. Just the one podium finish has him 12th in the standings, 39 points behind teammate Fabio Di Giannantonio, who’s now getting a GP25 next year for his trouble, and 113 points behind Marc Marquez on the same bike, who’s had the same hurdles to overcome.
Aprilia admits they’re gambling a little bit based on the potential of Bez rather than his current form, but in any case, they’ve snagged two of the best riders on the market, and I respect the fact that Aprilia, once the little team who could barely compete, could feasibly sign the riders 2nd and 3rd in last year’s Championship on merit. It’s a testament to how far they’ve come, but the honeymoon period is over.
Trackhouse has also been an interesting story. A great addition to the Championship in terms of branding and social media outreach, they already blow the rest of the field away in that department. But it’s been a rocky start as they still deal with their RNF past. Eighth out of 11 teams despite one of their riders being on a 2024 Aprilia probably wasn’t what the doctor ordered.
Raul Fernandez will finally get his version of the bike this weekend at Silverstone. But it looks like Miguel’s leaving the team with a factory Yamaha contract calling his name at Pramac with a lot of under-the-table murmurs about fallings out with the team. It looks like Ai Ogura from Moto2 will take his place according to Spain’s Motorsport.com department. A strong hire who could have easily been in MotoGP two years ago when he came so close to winning the intermediate title. And I’m glad he’s getting the nod over the easy, baity American hire of Joe Roberts. But are we sure that Raul Fernandez is good enough to build an entire MotoGP team around?
But for Aprilia as a whole? This is a team that’s now got all the tools it needs to win consistently. Elite riders? Used to be the bottleneck. Not anymore. Factory partner? Check. Technical innovation? Check. Budget? Check. They’re going to be in a dogfight with KTM for second in the standings. If they can win that fight, it’d be nice, but sitting 140 points behind Ducati through nine races (And on pace to remain a Tier C concession factory), will be disappointing for a team whose main goal was closing that gap. If these moves don’t stick, I’m not sure what will.
Ducati – “Still them.”
Ducati is still them, accept no substitutes. But their overall direction as a company is interesting and certainly raised some eyebrows.
For 2025, they won’t have eight bikes on the grid, and they probably won’t have four factory-spec machines. They didn’t bend over backwards to facilitate keeping Pramac at all before they bolted to Yamaha’s. When Ducati was insistent they weren’t going to give Marc Marquez a fifth GP25 just to placate him, they got their pants pulled down when Marc wasn’t prepared to be pushed around by Ducati’s negotiating tactics. The Spaniard made a power play, and Ducati folded.
The allure of Marc Marquez and building a genuine superteam with the marketing clout of the Antman was too much to resist. And the funny thing is, they’ve sacrificed an enormous amount of resources to make this happen. Jorge Martin? Gone. Enea Bastianini, who’s done very little wrong in red besides being injured at the hands of others? Gone. Bez? Gone. Pramac? Gone. This team used to brag about the strength in depth that it had and wanting a developmental path to get young talent up the grid. They’ve blown it all up for Marc Marquez entering his Age-32 season. You could argue in fact, that Marc might not even be necessary given Francesco Bagnaia’s excellence.
I admit, I’m focusing on this because there isn’t much to say about the racing. As usual, they’ve been the pinnacle of Motorsport as a whole in terms of dominance. The aim was to create a GP24 Desmo that was a much greater step up in terms of performance. It’s fair to say they’ve achieved that given eight out of the nine races so far this season have been won on that bike, with Bagnaia taking six wins.
Not for the first time, the Italian had a rough start to his campaign, struggling with the rear-end “chatter” of the bike, but once he and Ducati solved that issue, he ran rampant, winning five out of the last six, and Jorge Martin went from having a 40 point lead to being down 10 at the break. The Spaniard is still excellent over Sprints, to the point that it’s propping up two massive crashes from the lead, but the Sprints are still a weakness for Bagnaia that Martin can exploit. But Martin HAS to mitigate the errors, now more than ever. Bagnaia tends to get better as the year goes on, but he too has his “Bozo gene” moments. Martin needs to start adding pressure to the Italian or else he’s looking at another runner-up birth.
Beyond that, it’s been great to see Franky Morbidelli finding some form on the Pramac GP24 again, even going as far as being a challenger for the win in Germany for the first half of the race, and if he likely moves to VR46, he’ll be in good hands over there.
As for Marc Marquez? The man has had his weaknesses since the Ducati move, no doubt. But he’s been box office in extracting more out of a GP23 than anyone else has the moment he walked into Ducati colours. The qualifying still isn’t there, often reverting to his Honda habits of trying to extract the pace out of the front tire when the Ducati makes its time using the rear, so at the absolute limit, he falls back to old habits. But in race trim, he’s the clear #3 man in this Championship.
Six finishes of fourth or better in the nine races so far, and agonisingly close to a win in Jerez and Le Mans, with flashes of his ultimate form in Germany down the stretch too. Like I said, the qualifying has to do better, and I still fear the gap between his undeveloped GP23 and the 24 that Ducati will be fiddling with as the year goes on will only get bigger. But man, he’s fun. I do wonder how much Ducati will help Marc given it’s in their best interest to show they’ve made the right move, but do they want to interfere with what’s currently a two-man title race?
Beyond the big hitters, Alex Marquez is having his most consistent MotoGP season yet and is deservedly in the Top 10 in the standings. And Diggia is a wonderful story of patience and perseverance, turning what looked like an early exit from the class last year into factory support for 2025.
The only big question left is what does Ducati do with Fermin Aldeguer. As mentioned earlier in the season, his agent has admitted that Aldeguer isn’t entitled to factory equipment until Year 3 of his contract in 2027, so that opens up the flexibility of his spot. And with Davide Tardozzi confirming their futures, Morbidelli is coming home to VR46 and taking his GP24 with him, so that essentially guarantees Aldeguer to Gresini alongside newly tied down Alex Marquez.
All-in-all, Ducati has no threat to the crown coming anytime soon. It reminds me a lot of the Chicago Bears when they took Devin Hester in the second round of the NFL Draft. He was purely taken to return punts and kickoffs, not be a Wide Receiver. You have a much better chance of that kind of specialist player being undrafted than in the second round. It was a luxury, almost vanity pick. They did it because they could afford to, in the same way that they had the luxury of bringing in Marc Marquez. This is where Ducati is at. And may the other competitors tremble in fear at what could be coming next. Let’s see if Jorge Martin can kick Gigi Dall’Igna in the jewels one more time before he heads for the exit door.
Welcome to the run-in.
