Alex Marquez has officially made the switch to Ducati for the 2023 season.
- The two-time World Champion will partner Fabio Di Giannantonio at the Gresini Racing team, replacing Enea Bastianini.
- The announcement came ahead of Sunday’s action at the Motul TT Assen.
Marquez will replace Bastianini with the Italian set to be moving to either factory Ducati or Pramac Racing Ducati in 2023.
As the 2014 Moto3 and 2019 Moto2 winner, including 40 podiums and 12 race wins, the 26-year-old will venture into his fourth season in the premier class for the first time onboard a Ducati machinery.
“I’m happy to announce that I’ll be joining Team Gresini MotoGP, and I’m also very excited to be starting this new adventure: it was crucial for me to change to recover the same type of motivation I had when I first joined this class.
“This was the best option for me, with a team that helped write the history of this championship. I want to thank Nadia, Carlo and all the GR staff for believing in me. I still have half a season left to do my best before starting 2023 with top motivation,” said Marquez.
Meanwhile, Di Giannantonio is already having a bright start to his career in his rookie season, after claiming his first pole position and eighth place as the best result so far.
“I’m really happy to extend my partnership with this team, which is like a family to me. It’s great because we’ll continue on this learning curve, and we’ll be doing so with a Ducati – and that makes me very happy.
“Continuity is key in MotoGP in order to be able to work on myself to be the best possible. We have been working on this contract extension for a little while, and now we can finally announce it.
“Obviously the goals will be higher: we’ll be using this second part of the season to improve our results and then next year I really want to make that step up,” said the Italian.
