Enea Bastianini is set to complete a switch away from Ducati and join KTM for the 2025 MotoGP season.
The reports come from Carlo Pernat, Bastianini’s manager, who appeared on Italian radio station RAI Radio 1 and said that Bastinianini will ride “an official KTM” in 2025.
Although Pernat’s use of the word “official” immediately invokes a thought of the Red Bull KTM team, Bastianini is thought to be set to join the Red Bull GasGas Factory Racing Tech3 team, with Crash.net reporting that KTM could run four factory-spec RC16s in 2025.
Bastianini would replace Pedro Acosta, who was confirmed at the Red Bull KTM Factory Racing squad for 2025 over the weekend at the Italian Grand Prix.
Bastianini finished the race on Sunday in second place, passing Jorge Martin at the final corner. Martin will also leave Ducati at the end of 2024, having announced a move to Aprilia.
Into Bastianini’s place will walk Marc Marquez, who will join the factory team after one season with Gresini Ducati. According to Autosport, Marquez told Ducati management at the weekend that he would only accept a contract that put him alongside Bagnaia. Martin had already decided that it would be the factory Ducati team or the factory team of another manufacturer for him in 2025, Ducati’s apparent decision on Marquez forcing his move to Noale. Marquez has had the same effect on Bastianini, who is believed to have also had options at Yamaha and Aprilia, who are not certain to keep Maverick Vinales next season.
Bastianini’s KTM move will reunite him with Alberto Giribuola, who went to KTM at the end of 2022 along with Jack Miller and a number of other Ducati engineers. Giribuola was Bastianini’s crew chief in 2021 at the Avintia team and in 2022 at the Gresini team, although his role at KTM is more general and does not put him in the crew of one specific rider.
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