On Sunday at the Mandalika circuit, Ducati's day was saved by Team Gresini. While the factory team stumbled into a disaster - with Bagnaia lost in the indecipherable mazes of yet another bad day and Marc Marquez felled at Turn 7 by Bezzecchi's eagerness - it was the turn of the team led by Nadia Padovani to hoist the Desmosedici to the top of the standings.
Fermín Aldeguer, 20, a rookie, won his first MotoGP race on Sunday after finishing second in Saturday's Sprint. The rider from Murcia, elected to the premier class even before he had his last season in Moto2, repaid everything: the trust of the Faenza team, the gamble of Borgo Panigale, and even the aesthetics of that blue livery which by now among MotoGP riders has earned the reputation of being a certainty rather than a bet. For him, in his debut year, it is already the third appearance on the premier class podium, the sixth considering also the Sprint Races.
Behind him and a diehard Pedro Acosta, teammate Alex Marquez finished third. His eighth podium finish of the season, accompanied by victories at Jerez and Montmeló, earned the youngest of the Marquez brothers the title of best independent rider of the year, won on a GP24. A bike "on paper" inferior to its official team sister and with which Alex has beaten all the other satellite riders, and for now even the two GP25s entrusted to the wrist of Bagnaia and Di Giannantonio. With a lead in the standings of 88 points when there are four rounds left to the end of the season and Bagnaia sunk into the crisis we know, it is very likely that Alex Marquez will also succeed in graduating as world championship runner-up.
Gresini's history with the Borgo Panigale factory is quite young. It began in 2022, when the facility ceased serving as a platform for Aprilia's factory team and returned as an independent team, this time opting for Ducati's Desmosedici. The transition was announced in June 2021, the toughest period for Gresini Racing. In fact, just four months had passed since the death by Covid of the Pater familias, the backbone of the team, the unforgettable Fausto Gresini.
No one, given such a delicate and precarious moment, would have expected such an impact: Enea Bastianini, chosen precisely by Fausto, won the first race of the year in Qatar, and since then, until Sunday, every rider who has climbed on Gresini's Desmosedici has won at least one race in MotoGP. This is a figure that we normally only read about in the seasons of factory teams.
In 2022 Bastianini won four Grands Prix (Qatar, USA, France, Aragon) finding himself as Pecco Bagnaia's main domestic rival, with a bike from the previous year, the GP21. Enea's speed probably did not prove to be particularly comfortable even for Ducati's top management. We recall one episode: the race at Misano. Bagnaia and Bastianini arrived close together on the last lap. Bagnaia was in the middle of his chase after Fabio Quartararo, leader of the standings. The rider followed by Carlo Pernat, however, seemed to have that little bit extra and attempted an overtake on Bagnaia. In the end, the maneuver failed and Bagnaia won his fourth consecutive race, picking up more decisive points for the title victory. At the parc fermé, Ducati CEO Claudio Domenicali had this to say about the Gresini rider's attempt: "Enea rode well, but on the last lap he could have spared us that braking: he risked too much, we don't like it."
That year, alongside Bastianini, there was also Fabio Di Giannantonio in Team Gresini. Quieter at first, in the middle of a more constructive phase. But already in 2022, in the midst of many difficulties, the Roman was showing he had something, such as the pole at Mugello in wet asphalt conditions. The victory, his first, came in 2023 in Lusail, with a podium and a working method that left no doubt: the talent was there, it was necessary to find the way to let it emerge.
The following year Bastianini was promoted into red and Di Giannantonio changed teammates: Alex Marquez arrived. It was 2023, and MotoGP introduced the Sprint Race, a new feature initially much criticized and then digested. Alex started strong: third in Argentina, then winner of the short races at Silverstone and Sepang, where he also took home second place in the GP. After the three disappointing seasons on the indomitable RC213V, orphaned by Marc, Alex truly found himself.
Then, in 2024, what seemed impossible just a few months earlier happened: in addition to Alex, the most successful of the Marquez brothers, Marc, also arrived in Team Gresini . He left Honda - indeed, he took away a piece of his career, life, and identity - and stepped onto the sky-blue Ducati. The transition was a leap of faith: swapping the RC213V for the Desmosedici meant a complete change of worlds. But Marc had no alternative but to kick all the doubts out of his head and prove to himself that he was still competitive after the via crucis of his right arm injury. He responded in his own way: three wins (Aragon, Misano, Phillip Island) and 7 podiums with the GP23. A return to the top that - as an independent rider - led him to earn for 2025 entry into the Lenovo team, the official one, alongside the reigning World Champion.
Rookies to be welcomed and weaned, riders saddened by tough seasons to get back their talent and the joy of using it, and old champions wounded but ready to be reborn. Riders who whispered to tyres, with a soft, rounded style, and aggressive edgers, those all V-trajectories and pickup. In these four years Nadia Padovani's team has been the right home for every kind of rider, at every stage of their career, for every kind of man, at every stage of life. A small fortress where professionalism does not become aseptic and which, on the contrary, preserves a warm, familiar dimension, always fundamental, in sports exposed to danger, even more so. Anyone who has passed through there has been put in the right technical, psychological and inner condition to enhance their characteristics. This is the great merit of the Gresini team: shaping around the identity of the riders the context in which it becomes possible to get the best out of each one's talent.
Bottom line.
In four seasons, Gresini has gone from an outsider team to a parallel center of gravity in the Ducati universe. It has put back crumpled careers, built surprises, and demonstrated that a private team, backed by vision, expertise, and sensitivity to the different characters of the riders, can set the pace even without the most up-to-date bike.
A team that in its history has had to confront the most extreme frontiers of life, a team that like no one in the modern age has had the fate of having to bump into the darkest and most unfortunate side of motorcycle racing. Daijiro Kato and Marco Simoncelli. Two names that alone are enough to explain so many whys.
