Franco Morbidelli's emotion at finally racing under Valentino Rossi's tutelage

After only one season with the Pramac team, Franco Morbidelli will head to the VR46 squad for the 2025 MotoGP season.

Morbidelli, one of the original members of the VR46 Riders Academy, is almost heading home in 2025, having grown up in racing largely under the tutelage and guidance of Valentino Rossi.

“It’s very special for me,” Morbidelli told MotoGP.com at the Austrian Grand Prix. 

“It’s not news for me because we’ve been discussing it for a long time now, but it’s great and I’m really proud to be able to say it to everybody and to announce it to everybody.

“It’s a great story. I know Vale [Valentino Rossi] since I’m a little kid, and I grew up, basically my whole career, with him — following him, looking at him, trying to learn from him, being amazed by him, by what he did and the way he did it, and I’m still amazed by him.

“It’s going to be very important and it’s one of the things that I wish the most is to race with his team and with all the guys, and be able to make good results, to give them back something of what they gave me all my life, basically.”

Morbidelli, who will stick with Ducati GP24 machinery next year, admitted that joining the team was something of a childhood dream for him.

“I didn’t think about it, but if you tell this to the little six or seven-year-old Franco, for sure he’d fall down panicking.”