Ducati may have parity – but it’s no longer the best bike in MotoGP

It’s true that cliches exist for a reason. But it’s equally true that they’re stubborn little vixens to get rid of when that reason disappears.

‘Ducati has the best bike’ has been accepted MotoGP wisdom for so long that we’ve grown used to using the phrase without thought. But maybe it’s time to start giving the line its due consideration. Because the plot has thickened considerably as 2025 has worn on.

At the start of 2025, of course, you’d have been entirely justified in wheeling out the trusty old phrase. The factory Ducatis of Marc Marquez and Francesco Bagnaia were usually on the podium – almost invariably in that order. And another, supposedly inferior, Ducati was getting in amongst them. It was Bologna all the way. New bike or old bike, red bike or blue bike – Ducati could do no wrong.

But things have gone a little off-script since then. The GP25 was supposed to overcome its early deficiencies and surge ahead of the GP24 as development kicked in. Instead, it is still proving a difficult beast for anybody not called Marc Marquez – a man of supernatural talents.

Bagnaia and fellow GP25 pilot Fabio Di Giannantonio are, if anything, struggling more now than in the early races. There has been the occasional up, but the downs have been prominent. When the bike is off, it’s really off. Or, if you prefer the explanation team manager Davide Tardozzi gave in Hungary: “We think the bike is good, but it probably doesn’t perfectly suit the riding style of the two Italians.”

And what of the GP24, to which Bagnaia would switch tomorrow if the rules allowed him to? It’s still a sound bike but, as per the usual plan for a year’s racing, it hasn’t been the focus of development. Alex Marquez, its flag-bearer in the championship, even curtailed his day’s work at the Jerez test because there was nothing new to try out.

The GP24 has thus been left exposed to manufacturers still giving full beans on the development front as the season goes on. Particularly Aprilia and KTM.

With the GP25 unexpectedly playing up, the ‘usual plan’ has as such been exposed. Sure, Ducati split its eggs into two baskets – but one of them was left unattended. And inflexible regulations, not to mention financial matters, make moving the eggs around a problem.

Still, while all of this goes on in the background, Ducati is winning everything. And Ducati will win every championship worth winning this season. The question of whether it really has the best bike (take your pick of GP24 or GP25) is, for this year at least, academic. But it is only so because of Marc Marquez. A man who Bagnaia famously admitted “could ride a tractor and be competitive”.

As Ducati’s dance with its two models has gone on through the summer, it has become increasingly clear that confusing Marc Marquez’s results with good old Ducati technical superiority is lazy analysis.

High-tech though MotoGP has become, riders can still make a massive difference. The Formula 1 habit of putting all results down to the car is a dangerous one to bring to the two-wheelers.

It’s a similar trap to that which caught many in the springtime, when Fabio Quartararo went on a run of pole positions. That speed did not mean Yamaha had unlocked some new potential – it just meant Quartararo was performing miracles on a flawed bike.

High-tech though MotoGP has become, riders can still make a massive difference. The Formula 1 habit of putting all results down to the car is a dangerous one to bring to the two-wheelers.

That caution must work both ways, of course. So Alex Marquez’s recent slump doesn’t mean that the GP24 has turned into a dinosaur either. Most of his troubles have been induced by sloppy riding and incidents in the pack.

So how do we unravel the relative strengths of the bikes? We take reasonably large sample sizes across multiple races and riders, listen to what the riders are saying and take a peek at some key indicators.

Aprilia has taken steps forwards since the French GP

Photo by: MotoGP

You don’t need to do a lot of digging, however, to notice that Marco Bezzecchi’s Aprilia has come on in leaps and bounds since the French Grand Prix. It has taken over as Marquez’s most consistent challenger, seemingly regardless of circuit type. And on the evidence of Hungary, the sister bike of Jorge Martin is about to start helping out on that front. 

The Aprilia probably never stopped being a decent bike. New signing Bezzecchi just needed time to figure it out. And Martin just needed to, well, stop being injured and actually ride the damn thing. What’s changed since recent years is that the RS-GP is no longer being pushed aside by an eight-strong armada of Ducatis most weekends.

There’s also no need to scratch too far beneath the surface to note that KTM has slowly been getting there since its Silverstone nadir, with a noticeable improvement for its fleet in the last three races. The speed gun statistics of late have truly put paid to the old notion that the Ducatis are the numero uno rocketships on the straights.

On top of that has come progress in the handling department, with Pedro Acosta singing the praises of the aero update KTM brought to its home race in Austria. His speed – when not making mistakes – has borne out the effectiveness of recent steps.

So too has Enea Bastianini suddenly making his peace with the RC16 – and even Brad Binder showing a few flickers of his old self as the Central European swing has gone on.    

Looking more scientifically at points scored over a reasonable sample of recent races, how would the championship standings look if we discounted the first few Ducati-dominated weekends?

Let’s be conservative and leave out Le Mans and Silverstone, neither of which was won by a Ducati, on the basis that these were outlier races due to their conditions. Let’s rather begin in Aragon, which also happened to be the beginning of Marc’s current unbeaten run. The very streak that can deceive you into thinking Ducati has the other bikes beaten.

Marc Marquez’s form could fool you into thinking Ducati is the dominant force

Photo by: MotoGP

In the real standings for the season, remember, it’s still a Ducati 1-2-3: Marc Marquez, Alex Marquez and Bagnaia. The gaps between them all are fairly large. Bezzecchi is the nearest threat in fourth, but still 31 points off Bagnaia. Next up is Acosta.

But take out the races up to Aragon, and here’s how the championship tightens up:

Obviously Marc is still streets ahead, but we’ve already established that his success isn’t a measure of where a bike’s performance actually is. Of interest here, then, is the close battle for second. This would feature an Aprilia, a GP24, a KTM and a GP25. Does that spread suggest that Ducati has had ‘the best bike’ over this more recent sample of eight races? Sure, you’d be unwise to claim someone else has a better machine. But perhaps others have drawn level.

The teams’ championship behind Marc’s factory Ducati squad is also revealing. Right now Ducati has it all cleaned up, with satellites Gresini and VR46 second and third ahead of the KTM and Aprilia (which only had one race rider for most of the season) factories. Like the riders’ championship, it suggests Ducati dominance but was fuelled by big points early in the year.

Taking the scores since Aragon, VR46 drops from third to sixth, with KTM and Aprilia pushing close up behind Gresini. It starts to look more like parity than a Ducati landslide.

Consider also the small margins and who currently has momentum on their side. If current trends continue at the next race, this mini-championship could diverge from the real one even more dramatically.

While it’s fun to play around with Excel tables in order to try and prove a point, does it actually matter if Ducati has the best bike or not?

With Marquez riding, it may not matter whether Ducati has the best bike

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images

Not in 2025, no. But it certainly has implications for 2026. It has long been conventional wisdom that Ducati will clean up the last title before the big regulatory change in 2027. And all things being equal with Marc Marquez, it will.

But you can bet that the likes of KTM and Aprilia have done just the sort of Excel play we’ve indulged in here. They know they might now be on a par with Ducati the manufacturer, if not the Marquez/Ducati combo.

But what if one of them goes from matching Ducati now to actually gaining an edge next year? What if Ducati shifts its focus to 2027, making that feat a little easier? Well, ‘Ducati has the best bike’ will finally be put out to pasture – but there’s a strong case we should be doing so already.

The pack is chasing Ducati, will it remain the benchmark?

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images