The Pramac Ducati MotoGP team has become the latest outfit to unveil the livery it will campaign for Johann Zarco and Jorge Martin in the 2021 season.
Pramac heads into 2021 with an all new rider line-up following the promotion of its ’20 pairing Jack Miller and Francesco Bagnaia to the factory Ducati team, with Zarco and Moto2 graduate Martin joining the Italian squad.
The organisations ’21 paint scheme is largely unchanged relative to the livery it has competed with for the majority of its time in the premier class, with a primarily red and white look now enhanced for this year with increased amounts of blue in the form of flashes on the fairing and fuel tank of the Desmosedici.
Zarco spent last season with the Avintia Racing outfit competing on a year-old Ducati Desmosedici-albeit with factory help that assisted the Frenchman in bagging the team’s first ever rostrum result at Brno-the double Moto2 world champion doing enough to secure a step up to a full factory machine with Pramac for this term.
Zarco has captured a total of seven podium positions over four years racing in the premier class, six of which coming in his first two seasons with the Tech 3 organisation, then running satellite Yamaha M1’s.
A failed half-season racing with KTM in ‘19 led to him leaving the Austrian marque shortly after the San Marino grand prix to fill in for Takaaki Nakagami at LCR Honda for the final three races of the campaign, before Ducati came to rescue Zarco’s career by placing him at Avintia.
Martin meanwhile will embark on his first season in MotoGP following two years competing with the Ajo squad as a KTM junior rider in Moto2, securing two victories last year on his way to fifth in the riders standings-despite missing two contests after contracting Covid-19.
The Spaniard lifted the Moto3 world title in his fourth season in ’18 with the Gresini team, the ’14 Red Bull Rookies champion collecting a grand total of seven victories on his way to the crown.
Pramac has yet to score a MotoGP victory so far after nearly two decades of trying in the premier class, though the Francesco Guidotti-run outfit has come close several times with the likes of Miller, Bagnaia, Danilo Petrucci and Toni Elias.
Bagania looked set to score a first win in the Emilia Romagna GP at Misano last year before crashing out after running over an errant helmet tear off, while Miller narrowly missed out on supremacy in the Valencia GP after coming off second best in a thrilling final lap battle with Petronas SRT’s Franco Morbidelli.
The team has so far managed a best result of fifth in the teams championship across its time in MotoGP, a feat it has achieved three times.
It has operated as Ducati’s main satellite squad since 2005, having spent its first two seasons in MotoGP as a Honda customer alone before merging with Sito Pons’ team to run a sole RC211V for Makoto Tamada in ‘04.
It ran year-old Desmosedici’s across the first two seasons of its Ducati partnership before moving to running current spec machinery from the ’07 campaign.
