Ducati has awarded VR46 rider Fabio Di Giannantonio a MotoGP factory contract for the 2025 and 2026 seasons.
This arrangement includes official confirmation that Di Giannantonio will ride the third and final factory bike from Ducati, which Ducati’s press release indicates will be the case in 2025 and 2026.
This also comes after last week’s announcement that the VR46 team will take over from Pramac as Ducati’s subsidiary team from next season.
Yamaha had expressed interest in Di Giannantonio joining what would become its subsidiary Pramac team in 2025, but by the end of the German Grand Prix weekend before the summer break, Di Giannantonio had dropped a strong hint that he would stay put – essentially saying a deal had been agreed but not signed at that stage.
Ducati team principal David Tardozzi also indicated at last weekend’s British Grand Prix that the VR46 line-up would include Di Giannantonio and Franco Morbidelli.
Signing the factory contract was a “proud” moment, said Di Giannantonio.
“This represents a significant achievement and an important starting point for the growth of my sporting career,” he said.
“Thanks to Ducati’s support and having an official bike, we can continue to grow and achieve great things together. I would like to thank Ducati for their trust.”
“He has always shown great confidence in our project, and his dedication and talent have seen it grow steadily in the MotoGP World Championship,” said Luigi Dall’Ena, Ducati General Manager.
“We are confident that with the collaboration with the VR46 Racing Team and the official Desmosedici GP award, he will have more opportunities to show his full potential.”
Although he is one of only two Ducati riders not to finish on the podium this season, Di Giannantonio has largely delivered on his promise of a late 2023 breakthrough with Gresini last year, establishing himself as the second-fastest Ducati Desmosedici GP23 rider this season behind Marc Marquez.
With the Ducati team’s rider numbers increasingly dwindling due to the departures of the likes of Jorge Martin, Enea Bastianini and Marco Bezzecchi, the team had to act to ensure Di Giannantonio was not tempted to leave as well.
The VR46 team claimed during the German Grand Prix weekend that they had a team option on the 25-year-old anyway, but simply activating that option without an upgrade in status would have been a recipe for an unsettled rider.
But now Di Giannantonio will get the coveted Ducati GP25 next year, the only rider outside the factory team to get one as Ducati looks to split the GP25 and GP24 bikes evenly.
State of play at Ducati
Di Giannantonio’s contract renewal means that Ducati’s 2025 rider line-up now looks to be taking concrete shape.
He will be one of four riders under Ducati factory contract, alongside the factory line-up of Becco Bagnaia, Marc Marquez and newcomer Fermin Aldeguer.
Meanwhile, Alex Marquez has extended his stay with Gresini for the next two years, while Morbidelli is widely expected – although not yet officially confirmed – to move to his mentor Valentino Rossi’s VR46 team as Di Giannantonio’s teammate – as following in the footsteps of his current Pramac team at Yamaha is not possible.
Morbidelli is racing in GP24 this season and is set to continue racing in one more race next season – effectively a demotion.
The younger Marquez is also scheduled to race in the GP24 at Gresini, and it’s hard to see how he or Morbidelli could find themselves in a works car in the near future.
This is also because Aldeguer is set to be on the same sort of deal that Bagnaia took to MotoGP five years ago, with flexibility on the bike specification for the first year in 2025 – meaning Aldeguer is set to learn the ropes in the premier class on the GP24 – but a working specification upgrade the following year.
If that’s the case, and assuming Di Giannantonio gets a factory bike for both years of his new contract, there should be four custom Ducati bikes again in 2026.
