Franco Morbidelli

Date of birth: 4th December 1994
Nationality: Italian
First season in MotoGP: 2018
Achievements: world vice-champion (2020)

The protege of the legendary Valentino Rossi made his MotoGP debut in the 2018 season with a Honda bike for the Marc VDS team. He moved to the top class one year after clinching the world championship title in the Moto2 class. In 2019, he moved to the Petronas SRT Yamaha team. In 2020, he experienced his most successful season with the team. He became the world vice-champion behind Joan Mir, and he took three victories. He got a chance with the Yahama factory team in the middle of the 2021 season after Maverick Viňales was fired. However, he is still searching for his previous top form there. He finished 19th in 2022, while he improved to 13th last year. For this season he signed a contract with the Pramac Racing, which uses Ducati motorcycles.