MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

Motorcycle racing is relatively simple to understand as a sport. The rider that crosses the line first wins the race. Riders score points for their finishing positions, and the rider with the most points at the end of the season is crowned champion. Sure, there's plenty of detail crammed in the spaces between those statements, but at the end, it's pretty straightforward.

So the reason Jorge Martin won the 2024 championship ahead of Pecco Bagnaia is also very simple to understand. Martin did a better job over the course of 20 race weekends, scored more points, and earned the right to call himself champion. Jorge Martin is absolutely a deserving MotoGP champion.

But as much as Martin won the championship, Pecco Bagnaia lost it. Because of the curious and deficient way Dorna maintain their statistics (you can't ignore the existence of sprint races forever), the official season statistics PDF makes it look like Bagnaia should have won the championship. Bagnaia had 11 GP wins, and 5 more podiums. By comparison, Martin has 3 GP wins and 13 podiums.

What are we to make of the Barcelona MotoGP test? For a start, there was a lot going on. With 6 riders changing manufacturers (Jorge Martin and Marco Bezzecchi from Ducati to Aprilia, Maverick Viñales from Aprilia to KTM, Enea Bastianini from Ducati to KTM, Miguel Oliveira from Aprilia to Yamaha and Jack Miller from KTM to Yamaha), 3 riders changing teams (Marc Márquez from Gresini to Ducati Lenovo, Franco Morbidelli from Pramac to VR46, and Pedro Acosta from Tech3 to Red Bull KTM Factory), and 3 rookies (Somkiat Chantra to LCR Honda, Ai Ogura to Trackhouse Aprilia, and Fermin Aldeguer to Gresini Ducati). Plus Aleix Espargaro becoming a Honda test rider after spending the last 8 years in Aprilia.

There was also quite a lot of new parts being tested, and the basic prototypes of the 2025 bikes for Aprilia and Ducati. There was a lot of aero, a couple of engines, an exhaust or two, and frames as far as the eye could see.

There are years that the post-race test at the last round of the year - normally post Valencia, but Barcelona this year - is more of a formality than a source of excitement. The 2024 post-Barcelona test is not one of those occasions, however. A lot of riders are swapping teams and bikes, as are a lot of crew chiefs, so there is a lot to get used to.

The final test of the year is not usually a place to see new bikes or a lot of new parts introduced. Riders are tired after a long and emotionally draining season, the adrenaline of racing which has sustained them is gone, and nobody is as sharp as they should be and capable of providing the kind of precise and detailed feedback that the factories require.

In terms of bikes and parts, the focus will mostly be on general, big picture stuff. Some first impressions, and some acclimatization. The bikes at Barcelona may be very preliminary verions of what we see next year, but Sepang is where we will see the first real prototypes for the 2025 season take to the track.

With so many changes taking place, I have added a list of who is going where in 2025 at the bottom of this post. That includes riders, bikes, and crew chiefs. But first, what to expect from the various factories.

Ducati - an embarrassment of riches