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Following the announcement of his signing to Gresini Racing for 2023, two-time world champion Alex Marquez has labelled the switch ‘crucial’ in his MotoGP career.

Marquez – who clinched the Moto3 title in 2014 and Moto2 in 2019 – made the step up to the premier class in 2020 with the Repsol Honda Team, scoring two podium finishes.

He then moved to the LCR Honda Castrol team from last season and has been unable to replicate the rostrum success of his debut season, with the switch to Gresini from next year to provide a fresh approach with Ducati machinery.

“I’m really happy to announce that I’ll be joining team Gresini MotoGP, and I’m also very excited to be starting this new adventure: it was crucial for me to change in order to recover the same type of motivation I had when I first joined this class,” Marquez explained.

“This was the best option for me, with a team that helped writing the history of this championship. I would like to thank Nadia, Carlo and all the GR staff for believing in me. I still have half a season left to do my best before starting 2023 with top motivation.”

Marquez is currently 18th in the 2022 MotoGP World Championship, with his best result of the season thus far coming at Portimao where he was seventh.

The number 73 will partner Fabio Di Giannantonio in the squad from 2023 and replace the outgoing Enea Bastianini who is in contention for a seat at the factory Ducati Lenovo Team.

Di Giannantonio has shown flashes of potential in his debut season in the premier class, notably qualifying on pole at the Italian GP in Mugello.

“I’m really happy to extend my partnership with this team, which is like a family to me, Di Giannantonio explained. “It’s great because we’ll continue on this learning curve, and we’ll be doing so with a Ducati – and that makes me very happy.”

“Continuity is key in MotoGP in order to be able to work on myself to be the best possible. We have been working on this contract extension for a little while, and now we can finally announce it.

“Obviously, the goals will be higher: we’ll be using this second part of the season to improve our results and then next year I really want to make that step up.”