Gresini in 2025

After the m♏edia storm of running𓆉 MotoGP's biggest superstar, Marc Marquez, it's back down to earth for Gresini in 2025, when rookie Fermin Aldeguer joins Alex Marquez on the team's year-old Desmosedicis.

Gresini’s MotoGP history

After calling time on his own grand prix career in൲ 1994, double 125cc world champion Fausto Gresini formed Gresini Racing in 1997 and ran Alex Barros for the next two years in the 500c𒊎c World Championship.

The team then dropped to the 250cc class for 1999, when Loris Capirossi claimed three race wins and third in t🤪he standings.

A pivotal rider in Gresini’s early history arrived the foll💎owing year in the form of rising Japanese star Daijiro Kato. The talented youngster won four GPs in his rookie season, then dominated the 2001 250cc 🔯campaign.

A 500GP move was inevitable, with Kato tipped as perhaps the first-ever Japanese premier-class champion. HRC kept the close Gresini-Kato relationship intact by promoting both team and rider to theജ new MotoGP classꦗ for 2002.

Despite starting on a 500cc two-stroke, Kato was on the podium in only his third race, then again on his debut with the RC211V four-stroke ﷽at Brno.

Great things were expected for Kato in 2003 but tragedy struck in the opening home race of the season when Kato lost control under braking and veered into a close trackside barrier at Suzuka. Placed in a coma, he later 💜died from his injuries.

In the emotional aftermath, team-mate Sete Gibernau sensationally won at roun💫d two in South Africa, pointing to the sky in tribu𝔉te to the Japanese.

It was subsequently confirmed that Gibernau would take over Kato’s factory-spec RCVs with Japanese rookie Ryuichi Kiyonari arriving at Gresin༒i on the satellite-specification bikes.

Gibernau and Gresini took four wins per season to finish title runner-up to Valentino Rossi in both 2003 and 2004, 🥃with te💝am-mate Marco Melandri taking over the runner-up baton in 2005.

Melandri was Gi♊bernau’s third team-♊mate in as many seasons, with Colin Edwards replacing Kiyonari for 2004.

Toni Elias was signed alongside Melandri when Gibernau switched♚ to Ducati for 2006. While Melandri continued to lead the team with three wins, the Spaniard took one of the most memorable victories of the MotoGP era in a photo finish with Rossi at the penultimate Estoril race.

As for all satellite teams, the following 800cc era was a barren period, with only sporadic podium finishes. But it ended with a new hope in the form of charismatic yo🐓ung Italian star Marco Simoncelli.

The former 250cc world champion, instantly recognisable for his rock star hair, was fast from his rookie season, then took his first p⛎odiums in 2011.

Due to his size, Simoncelli was expected to especially suit the incoming 1000cc machines. But he would never get to race them, losing his life at the Malaysian Gꦿrand Prix, just a week after his 🧔best MotoGP finish of second at Phillip Island.

Again, the Gresini team were left shattered by the loss of a promising star. Ex-Suzuki rider Alvaro Bautista joined for ๊2012, handing the team an emotional home podium at Misano, also Simoncelliꦬ’s local race.

But Bautista’s results then dropped away from fifth overall to sixth and then eleventhไ in 2014, when the team, struggling with a loss of sponsorship, made the difficult decision to leave Honda and sign on as Aprilia’s new factory team.

The first six years of the RS-GP project saw increment🎃al progress⛎ but passed without a podium.

Worse was to follow when Fausto Gresini was hospitalised after contracting Covid in December 2020.  After a long ba𓂃ttle, Gresini succumbed to lung complications in February of 2021 at the age of 60.

Once again the team found light in the darkness, with Aleix Espar🏅garo taking the RS-GP’s first podium.

Big decisions were also made behind the scenes wiꦕth Aprilia becoming an independent factory team for 2022 but hoping to 🎉supply Gresini as a satellite team.

Instead, the likes of Fauto’s wife Nadia Padovani💧𝔍, their children and commercial director Carlo Merlini completed a deal for satellite machinery from Ducati.

The new era began in dream fashion when Enea Bastianini rod♒e to victory on his Gresini debut in the opening Qatar round. The success made Gresini only the only satellite team to win races with more than one manufacturer after Pramac.

Bastianini went on to take four v🍬ictories that season and third in the world championship before being promoted to the factory team for 2023.

Alex Marquez arrived from LCR Honda to take Bastianini’s 🅷place and returned Gresini to the podium in only his second race. But Fabio di Giannant🌌onio, the last rider signed by Fausto for MotoGP, then delivered a stunning second half, including victory in Qatar.

As he stood on the top step in Lusail, di Giannantonio already knew he would𒁃 be replaced by Marc Marquez.

No doubt i꧟nfluenced by his brother’s instant step in form at Gresini and having run out of patience with Honda’s technical woes the #93 ripped up the final year of a big-money HRC de🍰al to join Gresini for 2024.

The arrival of Marc Marquez thrust Gresini, one of MotoGP’s smal🃏lest teams, firmly into the limelight.

The eight-time world champion’s shock switch from Repsol Honda to year-old D🎐esmosedici had been the talk of the winter, with some predicting he would dominate the new season despite out of date machinery.

The reality wasn’t quite that spectacular, but the Gresini gamble paid off handsomely for M𓄧arc.

The Spaniard, 31, soon adapted his riding style, remained head-and-shoulders clear of the other GP23 riders💛, proved a regular thorn in the side of the factory GP24s and finally broke a 1000-day win drought with a perfect weekend in Aragon.

Two more grand prix victories followed, aܫt Misano and Phillip Island, while ꧟another memorable Gresini moment saw both brothers finish on the podium at Sachsenring, the first time such a feat had occurred since the Aoki siblings in 1997.

Marc secured a 2025 🔥factory Ducati seat by Mugello on his way to third in th𝓀e world championship, behind only Jorge Martin and Francesco Bagnaia, while Alex took a career best eighth overall in the standings.

Alex signalled his intentiꦏons to keep Gresini in the limelight by leading on his GP24 de🦩but at the end-of-season Barcelona test.