Ducati, Mauro Grassilli bluntly on the'impact of Marc Marquez

During Ducati in Festa, an end-of-year event organized by the Borgo Panigale company held in Bologna on Friday, December 19, the sporting director of Marketing and Communications of Ducati Corse, Mauro Grassilli, described the emotions he felt in 2025, a year in which Ducati returned to win the World title with the factory team thanks to Marc Marquez (after the success of Jorge Martin, with the Pramac customer team, the previous year), confirming itself as World Constructors champion for the fifth consecutive year, sixth overall. This season, by the way, all six riders riding a Ducati have placed in the top three at least once in a race.

“I remember very well that, in 2024, we said that the most important goal in 2025 had to be to make no mistakes, and that–s what happened,– Grassilli explained.

We promised that in 2025 we would try to do something better, and 2025 was a challenging year. For my part, keeping true to those words, I tried again this year to make as few mistakes as possible. The arrival of Marc had a huge impact for Ducati, for the teams, for the internal dynamics. The issues I had to manage were complex, and I tried to separate the roles well and do the right things”.

Inevitably, the talk turned to the’affinity between Marc Marquez and the official Ducati team, which at the beginning seemed to be not so obvious and instead proved to be almost unbeatable in this 2025: “I was not ready – joked the Redhead’s communications director.”

I remember perfectly the first time I saw Marc in the official team suit: I felt the same emotion as the first time I saw him enter our box, because until a minute before he was our opponent. Thanks to Team Gresini he had approached us already a year before, but the truth is that Marc was a bit’ our ‘enemy number one’ the one who beat us in so many situations”.

“Seeing him in red was impressive, a huge thrill. And also a huge pride: to have been able to contribute to his return to success, along with our values, is something I will always carry with me” concluded Grassilli speaking of Marquez, who in his first year in the official Ducati team won his ninth personal world title.

The 2025, for Marquez, has been almost perfect, if we exclude the’injury that ousted him from the last four race weekends: eleven Grand Prix wins, fourteen Sprint Races. The title came with a decidedly large advance, arriving in Japan when the championship was five GPs away.