It cannot be mentioned enough how exciting it is to have Ducati enter the MXGP World championship in 2025. We have had Italian brands involved in the Grand Prix series for decades, with the first being Cagiva and Gilera in the 1980s, then Aprilia some 20 years ago, but this move, by one of the legendary MotoGP and World superbike championship winners, is very special indeed.

Different brands have dominated the sport over different eras from Husqvarna, CZ, Suzuki, Honda, KTM and Yamaha. Of the major brands, only Kawasaki have missed the boat when it came to total domination in our sport over an era.

Our first ever World motocross champion, Bill Nilsson rode a British made AJS to victory back in 1957, but it was obviously Husqvarna, made in Sweden that dominated many of those early championship battles. In 1958 René Baeten, took first place on a Belgian made FN machine, with Bill Nilsson, Sweden (Crescent) second and Sten Lundin (Monark) took third again.

When Nilsson moved to Husqvarna and won the 500cc title 1960, the Swedish made machine then dominated for a few years, with Rolf Tibblin and Torsten Hallman winning two titles each in the 500cc and 250cc classes.

Jeff Smith won on the British made BSA in the 500cc class in 1964 and 1965, and Joel Robert and Victor Arbekov brought success to the Czech Republic brand of CZ in the 250cc class as they battled the Husky of Hallman.

In 1970, after CZ and Husqvarna dominated both the 250 and 500cc classes, it was Suzuki who arrived on the scene and swiftly signed up Roger De Coster and Joel Robert. As we all know, along with HRC in the 1980s, this was one of the most dominant eras for a brand as Suzuki took out 21 titles from 1970 until 1984. A league ahead of all the other brands, the yellow S was seen Worldwide as the greatest brand in the sports history.

Of course, Honda with World 500cc titles in 1979, 1980 and 1981 with Graham Noyce and Andrea Malherbe, then ran off with the 500cc class and from 1984 Honda won nine straight World 500cc championships with Malherbe, Dave Thorpe, Georges Jobe, and Eric Geboers and seven World titles in the 250cc and 125cc championship with J.M. Bayle, Geboers, Trampas Parker, Alex Puzar and Greg Albertyn.

Just as it seemed that these Suzuki and Honda era’s couldn’t be bettered, KTM came along in 2000 and Joel Smets in the 500cc class and Grant Langston (125cc) started what would be domination of the 125cc/MX2 class, as the orange army put together 18 MX2/125cc championship victories and in 2010, Antonio Cairoli won a stretch of MXGP championships on the KTM machine.

Yamaha had also enjoyed their best era in the sports history, as Stefan Everts and Cairoli handed them World titles from 2001 until 2009, Everts with six and Cairoli with three in that period.

Jeffrey Herlings also added five titles on the KTM, and that brand is still one of the leaders in total World championship. Of course, Jorge Prado added a couple of GasGas World championships in 2023 and 2024, giving that brand their first success, and Husqvarna rejoined the list of World champions with Kay De Wolf winning the first World title for Husky since Alessio Chiodi in 1999.

Of course, Tim Gajser has won five World title on the Honda, his first in 2015, then again in 2016, 2019, 2020 and 2022, but unfortunately, it's only been the Slovenian holding up the HRC challenge to KTM and GasGas.

And now, in 2025, we will have Ducati joining the sport and while Italian brands like Cagiva and Gilera had success in the 1980s, and we saw Josh Coppins on the Aprilia some 20 years ago, the arrival of Ducati is something that speak volumes of where the sport has come. This MotoGP, World Superbike dominator will be looking for a World title in the near future and that in itself is very, very exciting.

Bavo Swijgers image