Franco Morbidelli will experience a weekend full of emotion at Misano. The circuit that has always been special for Italian riders now becomes the stage for his farewell to MotoGP. Having officially left VR46, Morbidelli is set to be replaced by Nicolo Bulega in 2027, and is expected to move to WorldSBK with Aruba.it Ducati.
“Misano is always a special GP, for all the Italian riders,” Morbidelli said on Thursday. “This year is extra special for me because it's going to be my last one in MotoGP, so I hope I can do well this weekend.”
Morbidelli's MotoGP journey has never been easy. His future was in doubt for much of this season, with seventh place in Catalunya his best dry race result. However, he says he learned to live with uncertainty after a difficult rookie campaign in 2018, when the reigning Moto2 champion finished just 15th in the standings.
“I was scared of leaving MotoGP in 2018,” he recalled. “When I joined MotoGP, the results were not coming. So when results don't come, and especially when you're in the first year, you get scared. But I learned over the years to put fear aside.”
After a tough rookie season, Morbidelli joined Petronas Yamaha and won three grands prix—the first at Misano—on his way to finishing runner-up in the 2020 MotoGP World Championship. However, his promotion to the factory Yamaha team in place of Maverick Vinales was followed by a career low of 19th in the 2022 standings.
“My most difficult was 2022, I would say,” he admitted. “And let's see, but maybe this one.”
Returning to his rookie season, Morbidelli added: “I was just very young, and because I was coming in the category as the world champion, I was expecting a kind of performance. Instead, it wasn't coming, because the level in MotoGP is totally different. I was young. I was 23. Now I'm 31. I'm not old, but I'm more experienced. What aspect have I changed the most? I became more and more a professional and a dedicated athlete to my sport. While when I was 23, it was all a game.”
Asked if that was surprising given he had been the first official member of VR46 Riders Academy, Morbidelli replied: “I think that the way the Academy is perceived—and for sure maybe it's also because of the name—is as a school and as a teaching group. It's not at all like that. As maybe you can see in some videos, we have fun together, we train together, we enjoy the best sport in the world together. And the way of being of somebody stays quite the same. We are not homologated. We are ourselves. So if somebody is more of a playful guy, so he'd be. If someone is more of a serious guy, maybe like it was Pecco, a serious kid, we were kids, so he'd be.”
Morbidelli became the first VR46 Riders Academy member to win a world championship and the first to claim a MotoGP victory. His move to WorldSBK will leave Pecco Bagnaia, Marco Bezzecchi, and others who grew up together with Rossi. The farewell at Misano is more than just a race weekend; it's the closing chapter of a long journey for a rider who has experienced the bittersweet nature of MotoGP.
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