With the possibility of Nicolo Brega replacing Marc Marquez on the horizon, the WorldSBK regular has completed his first test aboard a Ducati MotoGP bike.
Brega, who finished second to Aruba.it Racing Ducati’s factory team’s Toprak Razgatlioglu in the 2025 Superbike World Championship, would be an obvious choice to replace injured Marc Marquez (who has been sidelined since breaking his right shoulder in a collision with Marco Bezzecchi at the Indonesian Grand Prix), if Michele Pirro is not selected.
Pirro, Ducati’s official MotoGP test rider, replaced Marquez in the Ducati Lenovo team for the Australian and Malaysian MotoGP races, but lost pace and finished 18th and 17th at Phillip Island and Sepang respectively.
Pirro doesn’t seem to have the ability to score points, and in any case Ducati has won all three MotoGP titles this year, so any points earned now would be relatively useless for the brand, especially if Brega himself won MotoGP in 2026. Taking into account the possibility of taking charge of toGP testing and moving to MotoGP full-time in 2027, choosing MotoGP to have Brega in the factory alongside Francesco Bagnaia is starting to make sense for Ducati.
The time on the bike now will help Brega get up to speed for the future, and his one-off race later this year could be used in part by Ducati and other manufacturers to assess Brega’s viability as a MotoGP rider.
However, Brega was clear that he needed to test the MotoGP bike before racing.
Brega will be able to ride the Desmosedici at the Circuit de Jerez to Circuit Ángel Nieto, and this requirement is currently fulfilled. Less than two weeks ago, Brega won all three races of the season finale, World SBK Round 3, and set a time good enough in Superpole to equal 14th place in the MotoGP race earlier this year.
No times have been published for Brega’s test, which ran alongside WorldSBK’s Michelin tire test, and it is yet to be confirmed whether Brega will replace Marquez in the next MotoGP race in Portimao from November 7-9.