Gresini Racing MotoGP

Gresini in 2024

Gresini Racing enters the 2024 season having pulled off one of the biggest shock signings in MotoGP history in the form of eight-time world champion Marc Marquez, who now joins younger brother Alex on the year-old Desmosedicis.

Gresini’s MotoGP history

After calling time on his own grand prix career in 1994, double 125cc world champion Fausto Gresini formed Gresini Racing in 1997 and ran Alex Barros for the next two years in the 500cc World Championship.

The team then dropped to the 250cc class for 1999, when Loris Capirossi claimed three race wins and third in the standings.

A pivotal rider in Gresini’s early history arrived the following year in the form of rising Japanese star Daijiro Kato. The talented youngster won four GPs in his rookie season, then dominated the 2001 250cc campaign.

A 500GP move was inevitable, with Kato tipped as perhaps the first-ever Japanese premier-class champion. HRC kept the close Gresini-Kato relationship intact by promoting both team and rider to the new MotoGP class for 2002.

Despite starting on a 500cc two-stroke, Kato was on the podium in only his third race, then again on his debut with the RC211V four-stroke at Brno.

Great things were expected for Kato in 2003 but tragedy struck in the opening home race of the season when Kato lost control under braking and veered into a close trackside barrier at Suzuka. Placed in a coma, he later died from his injuries.

In the emotional aftermath, team-mate Sete Gibernau sensationally won at round two in South Africa, pointing to the sky in tribute to the Japanese.

It was subsequently confirmed that Gibernau would take over Kato’s factory-spec RCVs with Japanese rookie Ryuichi Kiyonari arriving at Gresini on the satellite-specification bikes.

Gibernau and Gresini took four wins per season to finish title runner-up to Valentino Rossi in both 2003 and 2004, with team-mate Marco Melandri taking over the runner-up baton in 2005.

Melandri was Gibernau’s third team-mate in as many seasons, with Colin Edwards replacing Kiyonari for 2004.

Toni Elias was signed alongside Melandri when Gibernau switched to Ducati for 2006. While Melandri continued to lead the team with three wins, the Spaniard took one of the most memorable victories of the MotoGP era in a photo finish with Rossi at the penultimate Estoril race.

As for all satellite teams, the following 800cc era was a barren period, with only sporadic podium finishes. But it ended with a new hope in the form of charismatic young Italian star Marco Simoncelli.

The former 250cc world champion, instantly recognisable for his rock star hair, was fast from his rookie season, then took his first podiums in 2011.

Due to his size, Simoncelli was expected to especially suit the incoming 1000cc machines. But he would never get to race them, losing his life at the Malaysian Grand Prix, just a week after his best MotoGP finish of second at Phillip Island.

Again, the Gresini team were left shattered by the loss of a promising star. Ex-Suzuki rider Alvaro Bautista joined for 2012, handing the team an emotional home podium at Misano, also Simoncelli’s local race.

But Bautista’s results then dropped away from fifth overall to sixth and then eleventh in 2014, when the team, struggling with a loss of sponsorship, made the difficult decision to leave Honda and sign on as Aprilia’s new factory team.

The first six years of the RS-GP project saw incremental progress but passed without a podium.

Worse was to follow when Fausto Gresini was hospitalised after contracting Covid in December 2020.  After a long battle, Gresini succumbed to lung complications in February of 2021 at the age of 60.

Once again the team found light in the darkness, with Aleix Espargaro taking the RS-GP’s first podium.

Big decisions were also made behind the scenes with Aprilia becoming an independent factory team for 2022 but hoping to supply Gresini as a satellite team.

Instead, the likes of Fauto’s wife Nadia Padovani, their children and commercial director Carlo Merlini completed a deal for satellite machinery from Ducati.

The new era began in dream fashion when Enea Bastianini rode to victory on his Gresini debut in the opening Qatar round. The success made Gresini only the only satellite team to win races with more than one manufacturer after Pramac.

Bastianini went on to take four victories that season and third in the world championship before being promoted to the factory team for 2023.

Alex Marquez arrived from LCR Honda to take Bastianini’s place and returned Gresini to the podium in only his second race. But Fabio di Giannantonio, the last rider signed by Fausto for MotoGP, then delivered a stunning second half, including victory in Qatar.

As he stood on the top step in Lusail, di Giannantonio already knew he would be replaced by Marc Marquez.

No doubt influenced by his brother’s instant step in form at Gresini and having run out of patience with Honda’s technical woes the #93 ripped up the final year of a big-money HRC deal to join Gresini for 2024.