MotoGP legend Marquez was “reborn” after a year at Moto2-like Gresini team

The six-time champion pays tribute to Gresini ahead of his move to the factory Ducati squad in 2025

MotoGP star Marc Marquez has said he feels “reborn” after a year working at Gresini and has thanked the squad for playing an important role in his career.

Having left Honda with a year left on his contract at the end of 2023, Marquez found new life at Ducati’s satellite team Gresini this season despite having to make do with the old GP23 bike.

Although the initial adaptation curve was steep, the Spaniard was immediately quick when the new season started in March, before picking up pace after the summer break to claim three victories and end the year third in the standings.

His early season results played an important role in helping him land a factory seat at Ducati from 2025, and he is now poised to fight for the championship next season for the first time in five years.

Marquez said he needed a friendly environment to recover from a difficult end to his 11-year stint at Honda, which was hampered by both a career-altering injury and an uncompetitive bike.

“Gresini became a super important team in my career only in one year and I found the perfect atmosphere to [be] reborn, like they say on social media, to feel again that I'm competitive,” said Marquez.

“I found the perfect family, perfect atmosphere with my brother [Alex] as a team-mate, with the team.

“They were always working in the same way. It's a team that is super professional and you can achieve what you want with this team.”

Run by Nadia Padovani, the wife of late founder and former rider Fausto Gresini, Gresini Racing is an independent team that receives little in the way of factory support from Ducati compared to Pramac and VR46.

But it is the team’s small-scale nature that Marquez believes was crucial in revitalising his career, having previously worked in a more corporate environment of a company as big as Honda.

“Being on a satellite team reminded me about the passion of motorbikes,” he added. “Of course, in Honda, I had my friends there and I had a very good team. 

“But the fact is in a factory team, everything is a bit more serious. So this one [Gresini] is a bit more casual, more familiar. 

“It reminds you more, of course, in another way, like a Moto2 team when I was there. You speak with the boss of the team, so you speak to the ones that take the final decision.

“You can go to Nadia in this case and speak with her. I think 'this' and [she says] 'okay, we go ahead'. 

“And of course the most important thing is that they have the bike. [In a] satellite team with a good bike, you can achieve very good things as I did this year, as other riders did the previous years with Gresini.

“They have a very long history and a very long experience in managing different kinds of situations.”