MotoGP: More From Monday At Circuit De Barcelona-Catalunya

MotoGP: More From Monday At Circuit De Barcelona-Catalunya

© 2024, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc. By Michael Gougis.

On Monday, MotoGP teams prepared for the first post-season test, with squads rolling out new machines and riders acquainting themselves with new crew members ahead of Tuesday’s activities at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

Fresh off of winning the 2024 MotoGP World Championship with Ducati and Jorge Martin, the Pramac racing squad rolled its new Yamaha YZR-M1 prototypes into their garage. Pramac switched to Yamaha for 2025, giving the Japanese company two additional machines on the grid. This is expected to help the company and the two-bike factory team gather data and feedback as they try to improve their dismal level of performance–the factory team did not score a single podium in 2024. After Sunday’s race, former World Champion Fabio Quartararo praised the company’s revitalized development efforts. “If we test an engine and it is better, we have it at the next race,” Quartararo said.

Close-up of the left side of the fairing on a prototype Yamaha YZR-M1 in the Pramac Racing garage on Monday.

Clad in unpainted black fairings, the Pramac machines featured new aerodynamics, particularly down the side of the upper fairing, in a configuration similar to that seen on  the factory-team KTM RC16 racebikes in 2024.

Jack Miller landed at Pramac for 2025 after KTM let him go. He was in the garage with his new team on Monday.

Luigi “Gigi” Dall’Igna, General Manager of Ducati Corse and the architect of the all-conquering Desmosedici machines that have dominated MotoGP for the last three seasons, appeared for a brief news conference in the media center at Barcelona. Dall’Igna says he is confident that Ducati will remain competitive in 2025 with six bikes on the grid, down from eight in 2024, but “the real problem is that Martin is leaving to another company and same for Enea (Bastianini). This is the difference between 2024 and 2025.”

 

Luigi “Gigi” Dall’Igna.

Jake Dixon (96) will move to the Moto2 ELF Marc VDS Racing Team on a Boscoscura chassis in 2025. One of his racebikes was left unattended in an empty garage. It is hard to imagine ever getting this close to an unattended MotoGP racebike without a crew member or security guard ushering you away. But Moto2 bikes are a different story.

MotoGP is rolling out its new logo and branding ahead of Tuesday’s test.

 

 

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