Alex Marquez Tops Post-Season Test as Marc Marquez Joins Factory Ducati
Alex Marquez tops MotoGP's Barcelona test, while Marc Marquez shines in his Ducati debut. Honda rookies and new team signings also make headlines.
Frankie Carchedi had something of a break from his ‘usual’ job in 2024. Working with eight-time World Champion Marc Marquez, the Brit enjoyed an extremely successful season. However, Gresini Racing’s crew chief is actually known for introducing younger riders to the premier class and has an extensive portfolio of young talent he worked with in MotoGP.
Carchedi helped Fabio di Giannantonio turn his career around in his second year with Gresini Racing and gave Joan Mir – back then still with Suzuki – everything he needed to become World Champion in 2020.
After a year of working with and learning from Marc Marquez, he will now take rookie Fermin Aldeguer under his wing in 2025. The Brit’s first impressions were extremely promising as Aldeguer made some “scary progress” during his first day on the bike at the MotoGP’s Barcelona post-season test in November.
The test was far from easy for newcomers due to the cold conditions and a lack of soft front tyres after the season finale and the subsequent test were changed from the flood-struck Valencia to Barcelona.
“We had one little slip-off [when Aldeguer lost the front in Turn 5 and crashed], but it could have been a lot more with the difficult conditions,” Carchedi said. The fact that “all the rookies touched the gravel at some point” during the test “did not surprise [him] really” given the difficult conditions throughout the day.
What surprised him more was how quickly Adeguer acquainted to the higher speed on the MotoGP bike compared to Moto2. Still, the team made out a significant point of improvement after just the first outing.
“After the second or third lap, he said you sort of acquaint yourself to the speed, but for sure when we looked at the data, braking was the area that there was a lot more margin [to improve].”
“What really impressed me was that once we sat down to look at [his braking data], the next exit he was already much closer to the top riders. In fact, it was quite scary progress because we thought ‘maybe we pushed him a little bit too much!’”
Perhaps the biggest difference between the MotoGP bike compared to Moto2 did not cause any major problems either: “We concentrated almost the whole morning on learning the ride-high device and he got to grips with it very quickly.”
And Carchedi didn’t stop there. The Brit praised Aldeguer’s tyra usage as well: “One of the most positive things at the test was his tyre usage.”
“Because it’s not just about riding a bike fast, it’s riding it fast but not consuming the tyres so much that you need to do a pit stop halfway through a race! And actually, with the last new tyre, he did his fastest lap time and used the least amount of tyre.”
“Those are the sort of things you’ll be looking at because, to be quite honest, even if you start quite low down on the grid, if you’ve got a tyre underneath you that does the whole race distance you’ll probably pick up five or six positions for free anyway.”
“Everyone will have their own targets and goals. We have ours and what we want to achieve, especially in the first few rounds.”
Aldeguer himself can’t wait to get back on the bike and is eager to prove a point after the slight disappointment that was his 2024 Moto2 campaign. Still, the Spaniard knows, fully acquainting to the premier class can take some time.
“The fact is, I have to learn and learn again,” he said at Gresini Racing season launch at Imola. That’s what it’s all about in the near future. I don’t want to look at lap times or positions, but at race after race. I reckon that after six months we will be able to change the way we work. But it will take time.”
“I’m counting the days until the shakedown test. I feel fit and continue to prepare myself intensively. I can hardly wait to get back on the bike.”
