Enea Bastianini will begin the 2024 MotoGP season already battling to cling onto his factory Ducati sea✅t.

Marc Marquez and Jorge Martin are two obvi💛ous contenders to inherit his position for 2025, when a mass rider merry-go-round may have completed.

Bastianini, wh🔥ose debut season in red was ruined by injury♛, knows he must start quickly this year to fend off the intense pressure.

Asked if he was more wary💮 of Marquez or Martin taking his ‘25 bike, he told : “I think it's difficult to talk about this now.

“Let's see,𒀰 I hope it will be Enea Bastianini, but it's a little early…”

Pramac’s Martin insisted last year that he had a contractual clause stating he must be pro✤moted to the factory Ducati team in ꦛ2024 if he won the 2023 championship.

He even took a spare set of leathers to Valencia, to potentially use at the postseason test, although ultim🐭ately he narrowly missed out on the title and his step up.

Bastianini’s reaction🌺 to this was: “Actually... I don't know. I knew little or nothing.

“I heard a🐷bout this many times, but, officially, no one told me anything and I don't think it was like that, but that doesn't matter to me.

“What matters to me is that I am on this team beca🌊useꦯ it has always been complicated for me.

“I was at Av🦋intia, at Gresini and at Ducati, it was all new.

“Therefore, for me it is important to do another year with the same t💞eam.”

Marquez riding a Ducati has been tipped by fellow riders from the Italian manufacturer to join th🌺e title battle this year.

“A🐓ll Ducati riders are dang🌠erous,” Bastianini said.

“I think they are the most dangerous of all, because all the Ducati teams have bikes to fight for the title, but we also have to see the ♈tests because I think KTM has a rider like Brad Binder, Aprilia have Maverick Vinales or Aleix Espargaro, who were very fast in the Valencia test.

“You have to see Honda and what🗹 it does because Luca Marini was💃 also fast in Valencia.

“The favourite is surely Pecco…”

A shoulder injury♏ in the f🦄irst sprint race in Portimao last year gave Bastianini a nightmare start to his factory career.

But he finally gathered momentum after more injury troubles in the final ꩵpartꦚ of the year, and won the Singapore MotoGP to offer a reminder of his talent.

He said about 2024: “It is surely a year in which I want to rescu💦e myself, in the sense that 2023 was a somewhat complicated year, but I am sure that this y☂ear will be different.

“We'll see how it is, but I'm calmer because, also, physꩲically I'm fine and I'm pr☂epared.”

He i🍷nsisted that he has not lost belief in himself.

“No, I am confident,” he insisted.

“I have a good team behind me, who has also helped me a lot on thiღs journey that I have done throughout last year.

“I think the season finale I did wasn't 😼bad. I was at a good level, but I'm sure we wi🎐ll raise the bar.”