25 years of Pramac Racing Team
- Isha Reshmi Mohan
- 3 hours ago
- 4 min read
Written by Isha Reshmi Mohan, Edited by Dhara Dave
With Pramac Racing being the first to showcase their 2026 livery in Siena, celebrating their 25th year in MotoGP, let’s take a look at their journey in the sport.
Debut season and Honda
Pramac Racing joined the MotoGP World Championship in 2002 as a one-rider team with Honda. Their primary rider was Japanese legend Tetsuya Harada.
At the time, the championship was in a transition phase, allowing new 990cc four-stroke engines to compete alongside the traditional 500cc two-stroke bikes.
Harada campaigned the two-stroke NSR500 with Dunlop tyres and finished 17th in the final championship standings.
The following year, Pramac signed Makoto Tamada while also supporting Max Biaggi, who was racing for Sito Pons at the time.
The rapid changes continued in 2004 when the teams merged to become the Camel Honda Team. Biaggi and Tamada competed on the same bikes but used different tyre manufacturers, Michelin and Bridgestone, respectively.
Entering the Ducati era
In 2005, Pramac moved to Ducati, which began a long-term partnership lasting almost two decades.
They secured their first major result in 2007 when Alex Barros took a podium finish at the Italian Grand Prix on the Desmosedici GP7.
After competing as Alice Racing for a period, the team returned to the Pramac Racing name in 2010. Mika Kallio, Niccolò Canepa, and Aleix Espargaró were the primary riders associated with the team in the 2009-10 season.
Fast forward to 2013, a pivotal year when Ducati began providing significantly more support to Pramac as a factory-associated team.
This transition effectively established Pramac as a development program for riders stepping up from Moto2, with the goal of eventually promoting them to the factory team.
One of the major success stories from this era was Andrea Iannone, who joined as a rookie in 2013 and quickly became a consistent contender for top-five finishes.
This new structure meant Pramac was provided with one factory-spec machine and maintained a close watch on emerging talent. This led to the signing of Danilo Petrucci in 2015, who made an immediate impact by securing a second-place finish in a wet race at Silverstone, ending Pramac’s long drought without a podium finish.
By 2017, the partnership reached a new level of competition when Pramac signed Scott Redding to ride alongside Danilo Petrucci. To drive performance, an internal milestone was established where the ‘higher-ranking’ rider would receive the factory-spec GP17 bike for the following season.
This battle was not a pre-decided competition from the start of the year. Instead, it was introduced mid-season because Petrucci had missed the opening rounds of 2016 due to a hand injury, and Redding had been struggling with mechanical consistency.
While Redding held the advantage during the first half of the season, Petrucci took advantage of his strength in wet conditions to close the gap during the later rounds. He ultimately sealed the victory in Malaysia, where his ninth-place finish compared to Redding's 15th-place result made it mathematically impossible for the latter to recover.
By the season finale in Valencia, the two riders were separated by only a single point, and Petrucci successfully claimed the GP17 for the 2017 season.
The next transformational stage for the Pramac team began in 2019 with the introduction of Francesco Bagnaia. Having just won the 2018 Moto2 World Championship, Bagnaia joined the team alongside Jack Miller.
Although Bagnaia didn't immediately make his mark in his debut season, finishing 15th in the 2019 standings, he showed flashes of the talent that would eventually dominate the sport.
His 2020 season was equally difficult, as he suffered a serious leg injury at Brno that sidelined him for several races.
Despite those early struggles, Ducati saw his potential and promoted him to the factory team in 2021 along with Miller.
Best independent team and the World Championship
With two spots to fill, the team brought in Johann Zarco and Jorge Martín for the 2021 season. This move proved monumental. Martín secured Pramac’s first-ever MotoGP victory during his rookie year at the Styrian Grand Prix. That same year, the team won the Best Independent Team title, which they successfully defended for four consecutive years.
From there, the team's momentum became unstoppable. In 2023, Pramac made history by becoming the first Independent Team to win the Team World Championship. That year, fans witnessed a solid battle as Jorge Martín fought for the Riders' title, only for it to be snatched away by Pecco Bagnaia at the final race in Valencia.
However, this setback didn't slow them down. The following season featured what the championship dubbed the "Rematch," with Bagnaia and Martín once again fighting for the title until the very last round. This time, the battle in Valencia ended in Martín's favour. His victory also made history, as he became the first satellite rider in the MotoGP era to win the Riders' World Championship.
After the win, Jorge Martín left to join the Aprilia Factory Team for the 2025 season. At the same time, Pramac ended their long-term partnership with Ducati and switched to Yamaha.
Yamaha Prima Pramac
The 2025 season was a building year for Pramac, which may not have featured all the celebrations of the past few years, but the new partnership was a big deal because Yamaha finally moved to a V4 engine, which Augusto Fernandez helped test in the majority of last year.
This could bring more hope into developing the team, especially with the new regulations to be set in place next year, and Yamaha not being affected by the engine-freeze rule.
Jack Miller, who is no stranger to Pramac, made his return to the team in 2025 and will ride alongside three-time WSBK champion Toprak Razgatlıoğlu for the 2026 season. Meanwhile, Miguel Oliveira has said goodbye to MotoGP as he moves to WSBK to ride for the factory BMW team.
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