MotoGp, rider market in turmoil: speculation of a return to Ducati makes headway

While waiting for the final announcements regarding 2027, the rider market continues to hold court among MotoGp fans and insiders, also due to the forced pause of the MotoGP, due to the postponement of the Qatar GP due to the delicate international geopolitical situation. Among the names in the balance is that of Enea Bastianini: never found particularly comfortable in KTM, the Romagna native is tempted by a return to Ducati, specifically to the Gresini Racing team that he had already represented in the premier class in the 2022 season.

To confirm the feeling is Claudio Domenicali, CEO of Ducati: “Enea is a great talent who for a few reasons has never managed to sink the final blow – he explained during an interview with Corriere Romagna -. But let’s see, it may well be that he can return to Ducati.”

“On the 2027 riders not all the games are done, we have to wait for a few things to fit together,” Domenicali explained anyway. Bastianini, 28 years old last December 30, has been riding the Desmosedici for four years (in 2021 with Avintia, in 2022 with Gresini and in the 2023 and 2024 seasons in the official team): the best results came precisely in Gresini Racing, with third place overall in 2022 at the end of a season marked by four victories and two second places.

Since 2025 Bastianini has been in KTM but the feeling with the Austrian bike has never really come: in the first year only one podium came (third place in the Catalan GP), while this season he started badly in Thailand (twelfth) and Brazil (fifteenth), before recovering a little bit in Texas, where he took third in the Sprint and sixth in the long race.