MotoGP

Pramac to leave Ducati and become Yamaha satellite MotoGP team from 2025

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2d ago

Jun 27, 2024 / 4779 Views

Pramac will leave Ducati for the 2025 MotoGP season and become a Yamaha satellite team, with Motorsport.com understanding an official announcement is expected this weekend.

The team will end an association of almost two decades with Ducati as a satellite team to embrace the offer presented by Yamaha, a possibility that had been cooking very seriously for months.

Motorsport.com was able to confirm that the decision has been made and the official announcement will take place this weekend at Assen, where the Dutch GP, the eighth stop on the 2024 MotoGP calendar, will be held.

With the decision to leave Ducati, Pramac is giving up a two-year contract as the Bologna-based manufacturer's first partner team that entitled it to two factory bikes - a status it has been enjoying since 2020.

Ducati put an expiration date of renewal as the end of 2026, which was a decision that is the origin of the disagreement between the manufacturer and team owner Paolo Campinoti, and which has finally led to a premature break-up.

This news also comes in the wake of Ducati's decision not to promote Jorge Martin to its factory team in 2025 in favour of Marc Marquez, forcing the current championship leader to sign for Aprilia.

Pramac entered MotoGP in 2002 by sponsoring the Honda Racing Team, and in 2005 it partnered with the D'Antin Team, already on Ducati machinery.

Since then the relationship between the manufacturer and Campinoti has gone through ups and downs, until in 2020 Pramac became a partner team, enjoying the best material from the manufacturer.

Last year both parties reached an agreement to continue together in 2025 and 2026, with the same conditions and material.

This year, however, Campinoti detected a growing interest from Ducati in the VR46 structure, and the manufacturer even raised the possibility of Pramac 'ceding' an official bike to Valentino Rossi's team, which triggered the war between the two parties.

Franco Morbidelli, Pramac Racing

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Yamaha's first choice when it came to recovering the satellite team it lost two seasons ago was none other than Rossi's VR46 squad, given the historic ties between the two and the fact the nine-time world champion is now a brand ambassador.

But quickly the answer was negative and Pramac became "plan B".

Although negotiations were not broken off at any time, before the Italian Grand Prix all the signs from the team were that it was going to continue with Ducati.

But in Mugello Marquez's refusal to sign for Pramac ended up being the deciding factor.

Ducati had reached an agreement with Martin to take him to the factory team and proposed to Pramac to create a second official structure to give shelter to Marquez, but this was a plan rejected by the eight-time world champion.

That changed everything, Ducati backed out of its deal with Martin, signed Marquez and Pramac made the decision to leave.

"We have been 20 years in MotoGP without Marquez, we can be without him next season," Campinoti said at Mugello.

This weekend at Assen, taking advantage of the return to racing and the proximity to 30 June, which is the deadline Pramac has to renounce the agreement with Ducati for 2025 and 2026 without penalty, the Italian formation will officially announce that it is leaving Ducati at the end of the season.

Yamaha will then announce the agreement with Pramac.

Pending details, the agreement will be multi-year, first until the end of 2026, which is when the manufacturers' contract with Dorna ends, and thereafter, with the entry of the new technical regulations in MotoGP, Pramac will enjoy a long-term contract to become a partner team with official Yamaha equipment, which will charge a reduced price for the bikes and pay the riders' tab.

In that chapter, one of the bombshells of the summer could be the arrival of the Turkish World Superbike star Toprak Razgatlioglu, although to do so he will first have to get rid of his current contract with BMW.