The Valentino Rossi effect boosting a MotoGP underdog in 2025

Franco Morbidelli says representing Ducati and Valentino Rossi in MotoGP 2025 has provided “an injection of excitement” to the VR46 team after a strong start to the campaign.

The VR46 squad owned by MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi currently sits third in the teams’ standings after the first six rounds of 2025, while its riders round out the top five in the championship.

Franco Morbidelli has enjoyed a return to form on the year-old Ducati at the VR46 squad, ending a podium drought dating back to 2021 in Argentina and securing a double rostrum in Qatar.

Franco Morbidelli credits Valentino Rossi

It has put him up to fourth in the standings on 86 points, with factory-supported team-mate Fabio Di Giannantonio - who also had a podium this season - 11 points behind him.

Reflecting on the season so far, Morbidelli told MotoGP’s official website: “I’m in a very, very nice moment for me and the team.

“We are enjoying going to the races. We are enjoying working together and this is reflected in the results, for sure.

“I aways have a great result target around me. That’s good, I accept it.

“But for sure there were parts of my career that I wasn’t able to match the aims that everyone put on me.

“But luckily, I always was able to recover and definitely the help of the people around me and the team in general was crucial.

“We can say that I’m back having great speed and great results on track.

“And we are back on having this nice rhythm.

“We are very excited to go to the races and we are very excited because of the performance, but mainly for the great passion the whole team has for the sport and the great attachment we have for our colours, which is for sure red Ducati but also yellow.

“That’s a great, great part, representing such a great team and such a great character of the sport in general.

“It gives a great injection of excitement to everybody when they go to the track and the race.”

Morbidelli comes into this weekend’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone looking to bounce back from a difficult French Grand Prix, in which was 15th in wet conditions.