Marc Marquez’s Honda split, 2024 rider market, silly season, contract rumours, Gresini Ducati

Marc Márquez has made his decision to leave Honda official for the Ducati Gresini factory team. Now the cleaning begins.

In many ways, Márquez’s change is the opposite of a blockbuster move. He’s leaving MotoGP’s most successful manufacturer for a satellite minnow, and to get there he’s taking a mega pay cut of up to 98.5 percent.

But the reality of the situation, with Honda having completely lost its way and Marquez running out of time to maximize his title potential, made him the obvious choice. On a Gresini he will have the chance to win more races and perhaps the title, and he will be the biggest fish in the drivers’ market in 2025.

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The other side of the coin is more complicated.

An opening at the Honda factory team should always be a big deal. Still, the Japanese brand will have to convince a potential rider that the bike rejected by one of the all-time greats will do just fine for him – that the project in which Márquez has lost confidence is worth it.

The task is made more complicated by the fact that the equestrian market is almost entirely sedentary. The factory headquarters is the last to be won, with the other 21 already under contract for 2024.

Honda still has a certain prestige of course. Despite the deep, dark hole he finds himself in, there remains this lingering faith that he can’t be far from turning things around. It certainly doesn’t lack the resources to compete with Ducati.

He also has money, especially now that Márquez’s allowance is no longer planned.

Promise and payment: are they enough to convince a passenger to break a contract and make a change?

With five rounds remaining, starting with this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix, expect negotiations to accelerate for the final piece of the 2024 puzzle.

THE APPARENTLY OBVIOUS CHOICE: JOHANN ZARCO

Johann Zarco has signed a two-year deal backed by Honda to race for satellite team LCR, replacing Álex Rins from next season. During discussions about Márquez’s future, the assumption was that the Frenchman would occupy the factory seat through a simple promotion.

On paper this should be simple and the logic is clear.

Zarco has become an important development rider for Ducati over the past four years. At Pramac, the Ducati team’s first satellite team, he played a key role in testing and experimentation for the factory team, contributing to Bologna’s current dominance.

He’s exactly the kind of driver Honda could use.

But there are also obvious complications.

This project met with protests from the boss of the LCR, Lucio Cecchinello.

“I am someone who respects contracts and I expect Honda to do the same,” he told Italian channel Sky Sport this weekend.

Cecchinello has reason to be stubborn. It saw Rins leave the team after just one season due to difficulties adapting to the Honda bike, despite a rare victory at the United States Grand Prix earlier this year.

Zarco was a solid replacement who could play and provide sponsorship to the satellite team. Losing him this late in the jumper market would be a big blow.

Cecchinello also has a potentially powerful card to play in the negotiations after confirming that KTM had approached him in an attempt to convert LCR into an Austrian satellite. With Honda in such dire straits, the threat of losing its only customer to a driver unlikely to win you a title would certainly revise the cost-benefit analysis.

So, if it’s not the simple Zarco route, then who?

THE MAIN COMPETITOR: MIGUEL OLIVEIRA

Two names emerged over the Indonesian Grand Prix weekend, of which RNF driver Miguel Oliveira was the leading contender.

The Portuguese is a five-time winner of the race in his fifth campaign. This is a reasonably stable set of hands, capable of reaching high heights, albeit combined with anonymous spells.

It offers Honda the promise of occasional big results to silence the detractors during the rebuild.

There are reasons, however, why he might not jump as quickly in a move to Honda. One is the condition of Honda’s bike, but the other is the possibility of joining the Aprilia factory team if Aleix Espargaró retires or if Maverick Viñales leaves the team – more information at this topic below.

If you had a choice today, you’d choose a factory Aprilia over a factory Honda in a heartbeat.

But Oliveira admitted this weekend that he had been approached and left the door wide open for a possible move.

“I think this season we’ve seen a lot of things that are unprecedented,” he said. The race.

“It is true that it is a pleasure to be considered by another manufacturer like Honda, especially when it is a factory seat on offer.

“I didn’t have in mind to change, and there is nothing on the table yet, just an approach. But nothing concrete. »

The allusion to negotiations infuriated Aprilia’s management.

Aprilia boss Massimo Rivola was outraged at the perceived lack of respect for contracts – which he said Honda saw as nothing more than “paper to clean up butts” – while the director of RNF Razlan Razali said there was no clause in Oliveira’s deal that would automatically allow him to join a factory team, as is sometimes the case.

“That’s not true,” Oliveira responded after being informed of his boss’s claim.

Clearly, the issue remains relevant as we approach the final six weeks of the season.

THE WILDCARD: MAVERICK VIÑALES

Viñales is the other driver linked to Honda, and he too does not rule out the possibility of negotiating with the Japanese brand.

“So far I haven’t heard anything, but it’s always good to be open, listen and understand,” he said. MotoMatters. “My commitment at the moment is 100 percent with Aprilia.”

Viñales is in the first season of a two-year contract with the Aprilia factory team, a deal larger than a satellite deal. One of the fastest riders on the grid, it’s no surprise that he was sought after by Aprilia and is now perhaps coveted by Honda.

But that makes less sense for the Japanese brand than that, according to Oliveira. Although it is renowned for its speed, it also has a reputation for being high maintenance – its falling out with Yamaha is just the most high-profile example.

It also makes less sense from his perspective. He is already a factory rider and Aprilia is upwardly mobile. Although he has yet to win in RS-GP – something his detractors will notice more and more loudly as the drought drags on – the bike has the potential to take him there, as his teammate Espargaró.

He is also the de facto second-in-command to the so-called Captain Espargaró, who has reported that he is likely in his final years. Establishing himself at the Italian team seems to make much more sense as a career move rather than taking risks on a difficult Honda bike.

READY TO PICK UP THE COINS: FABIO DI GIANNANTONIO

We finally come to the only current driver without a contract on the grid, Fabio di Giannantonio, who is set to lose his Gresini seat to Marc Márquez after two years in the sport.

It’s not unfair to say that the Italian hasn’t exactly impressed in his 18 months or so in the sport. He was introduced by Enea Bastianini last year, and although he has been closer to Alex Márquez this season, he has not executed the kind of statement he needs to convince for another season.

Until the weekend in Indonesia perhaps. His fourth place in the Grand Prix – after securing sixth place in the sprint – was the best result of his young career. After finishing two eighths in Japan, it looks like things are finally falling into place for him, and perhaps just in time.

No one connects it to the Honda factory ride. Switching to this type of high pressure seat does not make sense for either party.

But if LCR loses Zarco, it could do worse by placing the well-spoken Italian in the satellite seat.

If RNF were to lose Miguel Oliveira – either to Honda or to the Aprilia factory team because Viñales moved – he would also be up to the task.

Experience is always sought after in MotoGP, and if Di Giannantonio can string together a consistent ride to the finish, that could be all the justification a team boss needs to choose him over an untested rookie so late in the play.

Although he was the first loser in Márquez’s team swap, he could still emerge victorious.