Why Ducati is leaning towards 2024 engine for 2025 MotoGP bike

Ducati has all but decided to incorporate the 2024 engine on its 2025 MotoGP bike ahead of this week’s Thailand test.

During the three days of testing at Sepang in Malaysia, both Marquez and Bagnaia refused to reveal the engine specification Ducati plans on using in the GP25 this year.

However, the riders had made the position for engineers very clear – it was necessary to leave Sepang with the engine decision already made. And taking into account what was said on the last day, Ducati may have opted for the most conservative solution of the two available – to use the same engine that brought it so much success in 2024 (16 victories out of 20 possible).

No manufacturer is happy to admit that the previous year’s engine is working better than the new one, because that would be admitting that the work it has done in recent months has not borne fruit. This time however, Ducati is doing so – albeit quietly – because of the results it achieved with the previous version.

Apart from performance, two other factors have contributed to the decision.

Firstly, pre-season testing in 2025 has been much more condensed than in recent years, when there was usually a two-week gap between the two tests. This time, bikes will take to the track at Buriram just four days after the end of the Sepang test. That leaves no room for the manufacturers to return to their factories to work and have the new parts ready for the next test.

Autosport understands that the manufacturers were polled and decided on this format, although Ducati voted for the traditional schedule with two weeks splitting the Sepang and Thailand tests.

In addition, the new regulations stipulate that the brands without concession benefits must homologate their engines in Thailand, the first round of the year, and that their specification must be frozen until the end of the 2026 season.

“We will evolve the 2024 bike, and we will not use the complete 2025 one,” admitted Ducati team manager Davide Tardozzi on Friday. “The engine is one of the things we still have to decide.

“We want to be conservative because, this time, the engine freeze lasts two years. We still have to re-test things, small developments, but the indications we have lead us to that 2024 engine. That is the problem of having made a bike that offers such high performance.”

In 2025, only three Ducati riders will have access to the new GP25 – factory team riders Bagnaia and Marquez, plus VR46’s Fabio Di Giannantonio. Meanwhile, Alex Marquez, Fermin Aldeguer and Franco Morbidelli will compete on last year’s title-winning GP24.