Wild that we are through December and January with our eyes firmly on March. I didn’t realise how excited I was for this season to begin until hearing some testing news filtering through the noise a few weeks ago.

Oh my. We are in for a cracker of a season.

The world champion has moved to a new bike, after winning the title on a Ducati, and having been slighted mid season by Ducati choosing Marc Marquez over himself Jorge Martin is on an Aprilia, a sweet looking , and if the tests are anything to go by - a competitive package. His teammate Bez is also coming from Ducati and I expect them both to be thorns in Ducatis socks.

The Japanese are on the comeback. Yamaha in the ring now with 4 bikes , more data, more chances of progression and the potential of them bringing a V4 for the first time to GP racing is tantalising - even if we won’t notice a single difference from the tv! Honda are progressing , and the riders are finally making the right sounds of hopefulness. Hope is a dangerous thing in competition - but realistically the hole they’ve been in is all they have to cling to. The sounds Mir especially made seemed that he trusted the front more. There are some tracks where top horsepower won’t matter so much, and I think we all would love to see the individual riders succeed and have a reprieve from the back of the pack as much as the manufacturers.

To be worried about KTM is the only place to be at the start of 2025. It seems the have found enough investors to get out of the financial mess they’ve found themselves in, or at least they’ve found a bit more time to repay their debts - May is not far away however. It’s hard to tell how much the MotoGP team themselves has been affected. There definitely have been layoffs, and tightness, but whether the bike has taken a step forward we can only know this weekend. Pedro will be ominous no matter what kit he’s sitting on top of, but I don’t hold much hope for the first half of the year for their two new riders. KTM really need to keep Pedro onside as he is their alien that would grant them more success than they’ve had so far in their project.

Finally Ducati. Fuck me Marc and Pecco in the factory team together. I can’t wait for the slow burn of the tension to ignite into an explosion as they become each others biggest competitors. Ducati are still a big step or 2 ahead and they’ve secured the best rider in a generation to sit on their bike. Not only this , last years bike was good enough to win all but one race. All but one is bending the rest of them over a bench and doing what they want, and that bike will be ridden by three other young lads eager to impress and make a name for themselves.

With so many questions in the air over Buriram , we only need to wait a few more days to start having some answers.