VR46 rider Franco Morbidelli believes running a year-old Ducati in 2025 will actually benefit him in the upcoming MotoGP season.
Last year, Morbidelli joined Pramac to ride the best bike on the grid, a Ducati Desmosedici of the same specification as Francesco Bagnaia and Jorge Martin, and better than that of Marc Marquez's, who used the previous year's bike at Gresini.
However, a huge accident in the winter while training in Portimao forced Morbidelli to miss the two pre-season testing sessions, and to arrive at the first races with barely any mileage or adaptation to the Ducati, after five years of riding a Yamaha.
Morbidelli finished ninth in the standings, and sixth among the eight Ducati riders, a result that did not meet his expectations, nor those of his team or Ducati. His former team-mate Martin won the title with the same bike.
While some in the paddock feared that 2024 could be Morbidelli's last year in the championship, his mentor Valentino Rossi hired him for his team for 2025.
Team-mate Fabio di Giannantonio will receive the latest Ducati GP25 this year, while Morbidelli will run last year's GP24.
The Italian rider believes that using last year's bike might actually prove to be a "small advantage" for him as he tries to regain his form.
"For someone like me, who has always found it too difficult to adapt to new things, keeping the same package as last year is a positive aspect," Morbidelli said at the VR46 presentation last weekend.
"The fact of not changing anything will mean that I will have fewer unknowns than others, especially in the first races. And it will be important to try to take advantage of that small advantage.
"I say small advantage because we are talking about winning again: if I want to improve my results from last year, I have to fight for podiums and victories," he added.
Asked about the influence that the fact that Ducati will have six bikes instead of the eight units it provided in recent years may have, Morbidelli downplayed the impact that those two fewer bikes may have.
"For me, it's not going to make a big difference whether Ducati has six or eight bikes," he said.
"It's not going to affect me too much because I'm not looking to finish sixth, seventh or eighth. I'm looking to win, to finish second and third," said Morbidelli, who from Monday will take part, along with the rest of the members of Valentino Rossi's academy, in a training camp in Indonesia, with several track sessions at the Mandalika circuit.
