Ducati reveals retro colours for Marc Marquez’s MotoGP title defence
Ducati has revealed its factory colours for the 2026 MotoGP season in which Marc Marquez will defend his title.
Ducati has revealed the colours of the 2026 MotoGP bike it hopes will give Marc Marquez the platform to clinch his 10th world title.
2025 saw Ducati largely repeat its livery of the 2024 MotoGP season, with the two-tone red paint largely unchanged from one season to the next.
2026 has seen a change in that, though, with some more white introduced to the livery, particularly around the front part of the fairing. The changes are intended to celebrate Ducati’s history, the brand enjoying its 100th anniversary this year, and we do feel like there is some memory of the mid-2000s MotoGP bikes invoked by the new stripes.
Ducati will be hoping that the image of the 2000s does not equal the performance of the 2000s, of course, since its success has been greater in the past five seasons of MotoGP than in any other period of its grand prix racing history.
Marc Marquez’s 2025 world title was Ducati’s fourth riders’ crown in as many seasons, and put him on the brink of hitting double figures for world championship titles this season.
Of course, that run for Ducati was started back in 2022 by Francesco Bagnaia, but the Italian has fallen in status at Ducati after his 2025 struggles that saw him finish only fifth in the standings and not score points in any of the last five grands prix. In many ways, Bagnaia’s 2026 season promises to be even more interesting than Marquez’s, simply because there appear to be so many vastly different ways for it to turn out.
For both Marquez and Bagnaia, the 2026 MotoGP season will start on 3–5 February at the Sepang International Circuit for the first official test of 2026. Test rider Michele Pirro will be on-track at the Sepang Shakedown test on 29–31 January.
