As additional facts emerged about the eventful Italian Grand Prix weekend in which Ducati appeared to switch from Jorge Martin to Marc Marquez for the 2025 factory ride vacancy, it became clear that there had once been a mad plan for the two to compete on track for the seat.
Ducati has not publicly verified the proposal (and is unlikely to do so), but it has been reported by various media sites and confirmed by The Race’s paddock sources.
At the start of Mugello weekend, it appears that a simple proposal was made to both Marquez and Martin: whichever finished higher in the 2024 championship would get the 2025 works seat alongside Pecco Bagnaia in place of Enea Bastianini, and the other would get factory-spec machinery at Pramac (similar to Martin’s current deal).
Perhaps it is not surprising that Ducati considered such a daring solution to their challenge.
Either Martin, who fought for the title until the final round last year and is presently leading the standings, or Marquez, who has regularly outperformed every other rider on a year-old Ducati, would have merited the 2025 factory ride. And it would have aided its efforts to retain Pramac on board if it could have made a definite assurance that either Marquez or Martin would be assigned to its satellite team.
It’s not the first time Ducati has proposed such a scenario to determine who received an internal promotion, albeit the previous time was more low-key.
In the second half of 2016, it informed Pramac teammates Danilo Petrucci and Scott Redding that whoever won their personal on-track duel would receive the sole factory bike for the next season.
The approach wasn’t exactly a success back then, either, causing a fair bit of discontent among the team members as they went head-to-head on track in a series of aggressive actions that were both predictable and unwanted to both Pramac and Ducati. Petrucci won by one point.
That, of course, is one reason why a half-season-long showdown between Marquez and Martin could have spelled disaster once more. Neither is very restrained when it comes to scrapping on track.
It could have resulted in more of the fireworks we’ve seen this year between Marquez and Bagnaia at Portimao, where the two collided and both fell – a scenario that is at best a distraction when the main goal is to win overall titles.
It appears that the personal sponsorship contracts, which must be completed far in advance of the season’s finale in November, were what ultimately derailed the Marquez/Martin strategy.
Consider Marquez’s list of longest-serving companions, for example. Allianz, the insurance behemoth, has a direct confrontation with Pramac’s title sponsor, Prima. The factory Ducati riders wear Carrera sunglasses, although he has been an Oakley spokesman for ten years. Ducati’s title sponsor is Lenovo, but Marquez has a direct arrangement with Samsung to showcase its technologies.
The biggest sponsorship element of all is Marquez’s long-term strong association with energy drink Red Bull, as opposed to Ducati’s partnership with Red Bull’s main rival Monster.
Of course, none of those disputes prevented Marquez from switching to factory colors, as evidenced by his choice to play his cards, reject Ducati’s showdown deal, and give it an ultimatum to either sign him for the factory seat or lose him, which it did only a few days later.
In fact, it appears that at least some of those sponsors will now leave the eight-time world champion as a result of his new contract, though The Race’s sources believe that the biggest names involved are still in talks with both Marquez and Ducati to determine whether losing him or gaining the factory team is the best path forward.
And those massive decisions by multi-billion-euro companies require far more time than if they had waited until the final round of the 2024 season in November to know which bike their rider would get, as their marketing budgets for the year ahead are set well in advance of that.
It’s just one of the many reasons why Ducati’s on-track shootout was clearly doomed before it even started.