Franco Morbidelli: “Everything was roses until 2021 at Yamaha” - Exclusive

Franco Morbidelli says “everything was roses” in his grand prix career - until joining the factory Yamaha MotoGP team in mid-2021.

Runner-up in the 2020 MotoGP World Championship with the satellite Petronas Yamaha squad - behind only Suzuki’s Joan Mir - Morbidelli was the natural choice to step up when Maverick Vinales suddenly parted ways with the factory team.

But it marked the beginning of the most difficult chapter in Morbidelli’s grand prix career.

The Italian struggled to replicate his earlier success and was overshadowed by team-mate Fabio Quartararo, just as the M1 was losing major ground to its European rivals.

“Everyone was always waiting for something really good from me when I had the most difficult period of my career at Yamaha,” Franco Morbidelli told Crash.net’s Lewis Duncan.

“Everybody was waiting for Franky to pull out something nice and sparkly. That’s what I always did, and what I’m starting to do again [at Ducati]. It’s what I missed for three years, from 2021–2023.

“For sure, the fact that I went from winning performances to having top 10s made everybody feel that I didn’t want to perform anymore.

“There is nothing further from the truth. I still want to fight for top positions, to stay in the top five of the category.

“I just found some very difficult situations. They were difficult to cope with. That’s what these three not-so-positive years gave me.”

He continued: “In some moments you struggle to deal with the things that are not going the way you want them to. That’s a difficult aspect of our sport and an aspect I wasn’t used to.

“It had always been an upward curve for me since I joined this [grand prix] championship. Everything was roses.

“The truth is that I was very lucky to face my first real wall in 2021, so after seven years in the championship.

“This is a thing that maybe other riders have faced before. But I had such a different path from the other guys. I joined Moto2 directly aged 19, then first hit a wall when I was 25 with Yamaha.

“That’s part of the career, of life. It’s normal. Everybody faces these kinds of moments.

“And the truth is that, even though I didn’t perform as some people expected from me, I didn’t perform bad at all with the package I had at Yamaha.

“I was fighting for the top 10, the top five in some races. And we all know how difficult that package was.

“Now they are getting better but still only Fabio Quartararo again is able to pull something from that package.

“Considering all these things, my not-great performances were not bad at all!”

Morbidelli parted ways with Yamaha and joined Pramac Ducati for the 2024 season. However, a head injury ruled him out of all pre-season testing.

Despite the disrupted start, Morbidelli quickly re-emerged as a top-six contender and took a first rostrum since his Petronas days in the Misano Sprint. He ended the year ninth in the world championship.

Following Pramac’s switch to Yamaha for 2025, Morbidelli kept the GP24 but moved to the VR46 Ducati team.

After ten rounds, he has claimed two grand prix podiums and sits fourth in the current MotoGP World Championship standings – putting him on course for his best season since 2021.