The 2024 MotoGP grid has seen a lot of rider movement between teams
The 2023 MotoGP championship fight turned into a titanic battle between main Ducati man Francesco Bagnaia and its lead satellite rider Jorge Martín.
In 2024 these two rapid front-runners are joined on a Ducati by a joker in the pack – Marc Márquez, riding for the third-string privateer Gresini outfit.
A shift to the Italian manufacturer for a rider considered by many to be the greatest of all time is likely to be the story of the season, but a number of other moves could influence the outcome of this year’s championship too.
2020 title runner-up Franco Morbidelli is looking to reignite his career at Pramac, while Luca Marini and Johann Zarco are aiming to help Honda work its way back to the front.
While attention has mainly been on Márquez recently, the rider touted to take on his mantle has finally joined the grid too: Pedro Acosta, who has signed the KTM junior team GasGas, is already thought to be a very real threat to the current MotoGP establishment.
With these moves and more taking place in a busy offseason, we run you through the full 2024 MotoGP line-up below.
Click on any team for more details or scroll down for full information.
| Team | Constructor | Bike | Riders |
| Aprilia Racing | Aprilia | RS-GP | Maverick Viñales |
| Aleix Espargaró | |||
| Trackhouse Racing | Raúl Fernández | ||
| Miguel Oliveira | |||
| Ducati Corse | Ducati | Desmosedici GP24 | Francesco Bagnaia |
| Enea Bastianini | |||
| Pramac Racing | Franco Morbidelli | ||
| Jorge Martin | |||
| Gresini Racing | Desmosedici GP23 | Alex Márquez | |
| Marc Márquez | |||
| VR46 Racing | Fabio Giannantonio | ||
| Marco Bezzecchi | |||
| LCR Honda | Honda | RC213V | Johann Zarco |
| Takaagi Nakagami | |||
| Repsol Honda | Luca Marini | ||
| Joan Mir | |||
| GasGas Tech3 | KTM | RC16 | Pedro Acosta |
| Augusto Fernández | |||
| KTM Racing | Brad Binder | ||
| Jack Miller | |||
| Yamaha MotoGP | Yamaha | YZR-M1 | Fabio Quartararo |
| Alex Rins |
| Maverick Vińales | Aleix Espargaró |
After being a perennial backmarker for a number of seasons upon its return to the world championship in 2015, Aprilia has gradually established itself along with KTM as being one of the best-of-the-rest teams behind Ducati and its various satellite squads.
Results began to improve from 2021 onwards, particularly with Aleix Espargaró behind the handlebars, the Spaniard rubber-stamping the upturn with a race win in 2022 followed by in 2023.
Joining Espargaró for a third full season at the Noale marque is the mercurial Maverick Viñales. Though sometimes inconsistent, the Figueres native has still scored six podiums for Aprilia. Can he add his to nine MotoGP wins this season?
Viñales was linked to the ’24 Honda vacancy but has since said he remains “committed” to Aprilia.
While it remains to be seen whether Espargaró will continue into 2025 with Aprilia, he has rejected rumours that retirement is approaching at the end of this coming year.
“I think that what I have done in MotoGP is good and if next year, at the beginning of the year, I am fighting with the best, I will continue in 2025, if Aprilia wants it,” Espargaro told Marca.
Known for its NASCAR exploits in the United States, Trackhouse – owned by RnB star Pitbull and former racer Justin Marks – is the new kid on the block in 2024.
Retaining the line-up of previous Aprilia satellite squad RNF, Miguel Oliveira will receive a 2024-spec RS-GP bike. Team-mate and 2022 Moto2 runner-up Raúl Fernández will provisionally ride a ’23 version until round 8 at Mugello, as reported by Speedweek. This means the new squad could pop up with some surprise results throughout the year.
Five-time MotoGP race-winner Oliveira turned down the opportunity to move to Honda for 2024 after only receiving a one-year offer, with the Portuguese rider preferring to stay in the Aprilia camp in the hope of moving up to the factory squad next season.
Despite rumours last year that Fernández could be dropped for 2024, he’s been confirmed for this season and has contract options which could keep him on an Aprilia for at least another two years.
Ducati, with its mighty Desmosedici MotoGP bike, has established itself as the pre-eminent force at motorcycle racing’s top table.
Francesco Bagnaia has now taken back-to-back rider’s titles for the marque, with Ducati winning the manufacturer’s championship for the last four years running.
Bagnaia became embroiled in a fierce 2023 fight with Jorge Martín who was riding for main satellite squad Pramac. There were rumours that the latter could switch to the works line-up for 2024 if he won the title, taking the place of Enea Bastianini, who was struggling with injury throughout ’23.
As it played out, Martín lost to Bagnaia, with Bastianini given a stay of execution for ’24.
The Italian repaid some of the faith with a win in Malaysia, but his contract only runs to the end of this year, as does Bagnaia’s.
Ducati CEO Claudio Domenicali was adamant the company will keep a two-year contract policy for its star rider.
“I don’t think it would be right for the company and for him [Bagnaia to have a longer contract]. It’s a competitive sport in which things change. We all have to always remain under pressure.”
As MotoGP finds itself in the midst of the ‘Desmosedici era’ Jorge Martín’s Pramac satellite bike – the same specification as the works team – has been the most recent challenger to Ducati Corse.
Though a move to the works team was mooted for 2024, Martín eventually stayed put after coming home second in the title fight – but he could still make the switch with Bastianini for 2024.
Joining the Spaniard will be Franco Morbidelli, aiming to get his career back on track after a miserable few years at Yamaha. The Italian almost won the 2020 title when riding for the privateer Petronas Yamaha squad, but injury, a poor bike and loss of form have stymied his challenge.
A member of Rossi’s VR46 academy, can a move to Pramac breath life back into his performances?
The headline news of the 2024 pre-season is Marc Márquez’s move to the Gresini Ducati squad. After an entire top-line career spent at Honda, the six-time MotoGP champion has moved from a behemoth manufacturer to a tiny independent team in search of a better bike.
So poor was the Honda, and such is the superiority of the Ducati, that Márquez is happy to use the year-old Desmosedici GP23 bike Gresini has access to. The choice already looks promising – the Spaniard impressed immediately on his Ducati debut by setting fourth-fastest time in the post-season test.
Marc is reunited with his brother and former Honda team-mate Álex at Gresini, a rider who showed an upturn in form with sprint race wins at both Silverstone and Sepang last year.
How long will they be together though? Marc’s contract at Gresini is only for one year, with rumours he could set for a works KTM deal from 2025. Álex looked to be under threat of losing his rider partway through 2024 for some below-par performances on a bike capable of winning GPs, but his sprint wins saw him confirmed for at least 2024.
Valentino Rossi’s VR46 team proved the joker in the pack for 2023. Using a year-old bike like Gresini, the charismatic and exciting Marco Bezzecchi scored a podium at the season-opener at Portimao before winning the next race in Argentina.
Though a slight dip in results – caused by a shoulder injury – tempered his prospects as an outside chance for the championship against the Bagnaia/Martín juggernaut, Bezzecchi was still one of the stars of the season with three wins in total.
Ducati hoped to move the Italian up to Pramac for 2024 in the seat subsequently taken by Morbidelli, but Bezzecchi preferred to stay at the team founded by his mentor Rossi – a switch could still be on in 2024 though.
Joining him this season will be Fabio Di Giannantonio. The Rome native struggled at Gresini 2022 while his team-mate Bastianini won races, and this continued in 2023 until a breakthrough found with his crew chief Frankie Carchedie saw him take a debut win in Qatar.
It looked like the Italian might be out of MotoGP until Luca Marini’s late move to Honda opened up a spot, with Di Giannantonio confirmed at VR46 for 2024.
Johann Zarco finally won his first MotoGP race in Australia this year, but elected to leave the Ducati fold after three years at Pramac and one at Gresini.
Ducati had offered the Frenchman a one-year extension, but Zarco was tempted by the more longterm prospect of helping Honda to develop its bike.
“The offer and discussion with Honda and Cecchinello was pretty interesting,” he said.
“I get the opportunity to have a project for two years, at 33 years old. It’s quite good to project yourself and, as a sportsman, do the best you can.”
Joining him is the incumbent Takaaki Nakagami, who struggled last year in one of his worst MotoGP seasons.
However, his decline in form has been in tandem with Honda’s RC213V, and so the manufacturer has given him a seventh season at the top level.
With talisman and arguably MotoGP’s greatest ever rider Marc Márquez leaving Honda in search of a better bike, the Japanese giant has had to regroup in a bid to climb back up the competitive order.
In Joan Mir it has a MotoGP champion “committed” to the project – fortunate, considering how bad its bike has been – however his deal runs out at the end of 2024.
Joining him will be perhaps the ideal team-mate in Luca Marini. Another VR46 product, the Italian is known for his thoughtful and methodical approach to riding, in contrast to his firebrand former colleague Marco Bezzecchi.
Though Marini could have stayed within the Ducati fold, the temptation of a works deal with a legendary team was too great to resist, signing a two-year deal.
Throughout its history Tech3 has regularly proved itself as a front-running satellite squad, winning races with Miguel Oliveira in 2020.
More recently struggling for form, it has now signed a rider touted by many as the ‘next Marc Márquez’: Pedro Acosta.
The thrill-a-minute Spaniard won his first Moto3 race in 2021 on just his second outing – after starting from the Qatar pitlane.
He romped home to the title that year, and last season took the Moto2 crown.
Expectations are high for a young rider on a multi-year contract, and he’ll be measured against sophomore Tech3 man Augusto Fernández, who is under contract for 2024.
Along with Aprilia, KTM is the other manufacturer gunning for wins up against Ducati.
In Brad Binder and Jack Miller it has proven race winners, with the latter a product of KTM’s prolific young rider programme.
Binder became the first South African to win a MotoGP race at Brno in 2020, that also representing KTM’s breakthrough at the top level.
While he has a contract for this year and next, Miller is confirmed for 2024 – reminiscent of Max Verstappen’s rapid ascension up the F1 ladder, the threat of Acosta looms large.
Yamaha is a team that has gone from being a MotoGP standard-bearer in 2021 to an also-ran just two years later.
This has led to ’21 champion Fabio Quartararo making negative comments about the team at several points, including describing a September aero package update as a “waste” – and claiming a change of culture is needed, moving away from pressing on with old development approaches.
“We have to change our mentality and be like Europeans and this is something super important,” at the Japanese GP.
“We cannot start a weekend with something three riders try and is not working. We still try to make it work, but if we don’t want it, we don’t want it. It’s a waste so we have to keep working on something that really isn’t working.”
Can Yamaha keep the disgruntled Frenchman beyond 2024? His contract runs out at the end of this year, but he will be joined by another MotoGP frontrunner this season, Alex Rins – though the race-winner has only come in on a one-year deal.
Galileo studied the movement of planets at Padua University. 300 years later, it taught Ducati MotoGP chief engineer Gigi Dall'Igna a more terrestrial form of motion. Why is northern Italy — once home to Renaissance revolutionaries — now such a powerhouse of automotive knowledge?
It’s the oldest story in MotoGP: BMW is coming! MotoGP has been wooing the German manufacturer for at least two decades, because having a premium global brand like Bayerische Motoren…
Pedro Acosta lit up MotoGP once again on Sunday in the 2024 US GP, narrowly missing victory, which went to Viñales and Aprilia. Meanwhile Ducati once again struggled with the dreaded chatter
Ducati has a serious chatter problem and MotoGP championship leader Jorge Martin can’t understand why other manufacturers aren’t struggling with the same phenomenon. Plus, what does chatter do and what causes it?
