“Natural ability” rather than team support cited for a MotoGP rookie’s breakout ride

Gresini Crew chief Frankie Carchedi believes Fermin Aldeguer has a “natural ability” to manage his tyres following his victory near-miss at the MotoGP Austrian Grand Prix.

The 2025 rookie has been impressive all season on the Gresini-run Ducati GP24, having prior to the Austrian Grand Prix already tallied up two sprint podiums and a wet grand prix rostrum in France.

But a stunning fight back through the field, having dropped from sixth to ninth on the opening lap, saw Fermin Aldeguer pressure Marc Marquez for the win at the Austrian Grand Prix.

Aldeguer’s tyre preservation was highlighted by Marquez after the race as being the strongest among the Ducati stable, and had him “worried” in the final laps of the grand prix.

The rookie’s crew chief Carchedi says the team has “helped him a little bit” in this regard, but believes this is largely down to “a lot of natural ability”.

“Really proud,” Carchedi said about Aldeguer’s season-best second.

“From the start of the season he hasn’t done anything wrong.

“He’s just learning, learning, and he’s always had that race pace that comes good at the end.

“It’s just all about Friday squeezing into Q2 directly because he knows Saturday he’s going to go faster and Sunday faster again.

“Just super proud, it’s one of the few times he’s been able to start nearer the front even if he was P10 I think after one lap. But super chuffed for him.”

He added: “We’ve been on at him quite a lot from the start, we don’t throw new tyres all the time just looking for lap times.

“So, we’re a lot on used tyres. It makes qualifying a little bit harder but that’s starting to come together a little bit.

“But he’s been really good, right from the start. We helped him a little bit, but I think there’s a lot of natural ability there as well in managing the tyre.”

Aldeguer’s tyre preservation made him faster than Marquez in the second half of the sprint on Saturday, so the Gresini rookie’s Sunday performance didn’t come as a surprise to Carchedi.

However, he notes the team still needs to find “that ultimate pace” to fight with Marquez.

“We sort of knew from yesterday because we were still lapping 1m29.4s at the end of yesterday, so we knew we had the pace,” he said.

“And it’s like anything: if you want to fight Marc, it’s ok being fast but you’ve got to be fast for 28 laps.

“So, we’ve got that side of it now. We’re still looking for that ultimate pace to give him a run for his money.”