What bike specs has Ducati actually started MotoGP 2025 with?

The 2025 MotoGP season began with a familiar Ducati 1-2-3-4, comprising bikes that can all be accurately referred to as Ducati GP24s given the decision to abandon the planned 2025 engine and park the planned 2025 frame at least until the Jerez test next month.

But that doesn't mean all four were the same spec of bike.

Factory riders Marc Marquez and Pecco Bagnaia, along with injury returnee Fabio Di Giannantonio (VR46), are campaigning the 'latest' version of the Ducati, even if that version doesn't contain much of what the factory hoped to introduce for 2025.

Meanwhile, Alex Marquez (Gresini), Franco Morbidelli (VR46) and rookie Fermin Aldeguer (Gresini) are all on hand-me-down bikes that already raced last year.

Here's a closer look at Ducati's spec situation.

What's new for the factory riders?

The Race asked Bagnaia on Thursday how different his bike would actually be to the one he took to victory in the previous Thai Grand Prix last October.

"The base is the same," he said.

"But we have some details that have changed on the bike.

"Right now it's similar... it's not a secret we have a different swingarm, it's a little different - but the bike is very similar to the GP24, honestly.

"And we [will have] more time in the future to try again the new frame or the new fairings, but right now the most important thing was to have a clear base and start with it."

Bagnaia and Marc Marquez have both been quite adamant that the GP24 base wasn't only battle-proven after its spectacular run last year but still had margin for improvement.

It led to a 'conservative' approach that meant the 2025-spec engine was discarded completely (due to losses in engine braking outweighing the gains in power delivery), while the 2025-spec aero and chassis have been parked until potentially the post-race test at Jerez after the fifth round of the season.

Ducati team manager Gigi Dall'Igna also confirmed during the pre-season that a newer-spec gearbox was also introduced.

And Bagnaia said curiously after the Thai GP that, for whatever differences there are between this 'GP24' and the one he was winning on last year, his feeling on the current bike isn't yet as good.

GP24 vs GP24

What of the hand-me-down GP24s then? The exact spec differences aren't public, but Alex Marquez indicated that the bike spec he now has at his disposal is from around the Austrian Grand Prix in August of last year.

The same will presumably be true for Morbidelli and Aldeguer.

"They have different parts," he said of the works squad. "For that reason they are 'official' riders, so they have some new versions."

He said the situation this year was similar to 2024, when the riders on older-spec bikes actually campaigned GP23s that the factory team had used at the start of 2023 - before being upgraded (and then downgraded again due to reliability concerns) in-season.

"We have good tools to come to fight in many races," he insisted.

Of the difference in performance, Alex said: "Maybe for one lap or like this, the differences are not really big. To manage the long race, they have some small advantage - but it's not a really big one.”

His performance on Sunday would corroborate this, but before that he'd been asked whether he'd like to have the newer bike and joked: "This night, if he [Marc] goes to sleep really early, I will change one. And I think he will not realise."

GP23 vs GP24

While the difference between the Ducatis competing this year is miniscule, it is increasingly clear that last year that gap - between the newer and the older equipment - was perhaps even bigger than felt at the time.

The superb performances of the Marquez brothers in Thailand, both having 'upgraded' in the off-season, have added to the evidence, as have the comments of Di Giannantonio - who despite his compromised pre-season and lack of fitness showed glimpses of impressive pace and spent much of his post-race debrief extolling the virtues of his new bike compared to the GP23.

"Pffff... When you write the article, [write it down as] 'pfff', like this," he laughed with the media.

"Way better. Way better. Last year I was talking with some colleagues, they were saying 'no, no, 23-24 is the same bike, just something new'. But... 'pfff'. It's like another world completely.

"Much, much, much faster. The power is insane, the traction is unbelievable, the turning of the bike is really… I think it's not one second difference [over a qualifying lap], but on a race distance it could be!"

The other manufacturers, too, received a confirmation of how good the GP24 still is - and that hopes Ducati would be significantly pegged back by its GP25 development misstep were perhaps premature.

Pramac Yamaha rider Miguel Oliveira said when asked about Ducati's performance: "In the pre-season everyone starts to dream and make a lot of plans, then" - he made a 'whoosh' noise - "first race of the season, when reality comes in, everyone starts to be a little bit more cautious about what they say."