Since 2013, when Marc Marquez made his MotoGP debut, the braking systems in the premier class have taken giant leaps forward. Let’s examine, data in hand, how his brakes and braking performance have evolved from his debut with Honda to today’s Ducati
Marc Marquez has once again imposed his style, and no one seems capable of unsettling him: he measured up on the Desmosedici in 2024, a season in which he raced with the Gresini team and won 3 GPs, and he has returned to being the cannibal of old once he joined the Factory Ducati team.
This is all despite him already being 32 years old, making him the second oldest rider in the 2025 MotoGP season, preceded only by Johann Zarco, who is two and a half years older. However, Marc made his World Championship debut in 2008, while the Frenchman managed it only the following year.
Over these 17 years, Marc Marquez has become the 3rd most successful rider of all time in terms of GP wins, behind only Giacomo Agostini and Valentino Rossi. With 8 World Championships won, he is instead ranked 6th all-time; however, this year he could match Valentino, Mike Hailwood, and Carlo Ubbiali at 9, thus climbing into third place.
Just like another legend such as Rossi, all of Marc Marquez’s triumphs share a common denominator – the Brembo braking system. Although with the changing classes and bikes, the characteristics of the brakes have also evolved.
Since 2013, when Marc Marquez debuted in MotoGP, even the brakes in the premier class have taken giant steps forward, despite the fact that since 2016 all MotoGP teams have chosen to rely exclusively on the performance and reliability of Brembo components.
The braking system of marquez’s first motogp
The 2013 Honda RC213V used by Marc Marquez to become the youngest world champion in the premier class featured a front radial Brembo caliper with 4 pistons, made by combining aluminum and lithium.
Since lithium is the metallic chemical element with the lowest density, its use offers beneficial effects on unsprung masses: the heavier the components of the braking system, the greater the performance decay of the bike in acceleration and cornering.
In addition to weight reduction, the aluminum-lithium alloys – mainly used in aerospace and aeronautical applications – also allow increases in strength and stiffness: with lithium additions up to 4%, each added element reduces density by 3% and increases the Young’s modulus by 6%.
In 2013, Marquez’s Honda used 320 mm carbon discs, except at Motegi where, for safety reasons, Brembo was allowed to use alternative solutions, both in terms of disc diameter and mass.
On these discs operated carbon pads, weighing 350 grams. The only exception was the rear, where the steel disc with notch dragging required the use of a sintered H38 pad that offers consistent performance in both scorching temperatures and rainy conditions.
For actuating the system, Honda used an 18 mm-spaced Brembo front pump made from an aluminum piston, and a rear pump with an integrated reservoir within the pump body.
The braking system of the ducati motogp
With speeds exceeding 360 km/h, today’s MotoGP requires tremendous braking power, made possible by the Brembo GP4 caliper – an aluminum monobloc with radial mounting and 4 pistons. The machining from a solid block guarantees increased durability and consistent performance even under extreme conditions.
The caliper used on the Ducati Desmosedici boasts an amplification system that generates additional force. This means that, with the same force applied by the rider on the brake lever, the braking torque is multiplied thanks to this caliper.
On the other hand, the GP4 caliper also provides a benefit when not in use because the anti-drag system prevents the pads from contacting the disc when there is no hydraulic pressure, via a spring system that avoids contact, as happens with traditional calipers.
Visible to the naked eye are the cooling fins present on the external body of the MotoGP caliper. This solution increases the surface area of the pistons exposed to air, efficiently dissipating heat between braking events.
The ventilation fins are also present on a variant of Brembo’s carbon discs, which are available in 5 different geometries, with diameters of 320 mm, 340 mm, and 355 mm. Each disc is produced in 3 different specifications: Standard, High Mass, and Extreme Cooling.
With carbon discs, carbon pads are used, weighing only 50 grams; nevertheless, they allow powerful, uniform, and stable braking. At the rear, however, since there are no carbon discs, H38 pads are used.
Another distinctive feature of MotoGP is the thumb pump that Marquez uses to control the rear brake via a lever located on the left side of the handlebars. In contrast, the braking power of the 18 mm-spaced radial pump with integrated reservoir is of inestimable value for the Iberian champion.
2013 vs 2025: Comparative data
This is demonstrated by the data from some of the most iconic braking zones of the World Championship. Take, for example, the first corner at Mugello, known as San Donato. In 2013, to lose 237 km/h, MotoGP riders had to rely on the brakes for 6.1 seconds while covering 325 meters.
Now, despite a speed reduction of 250 km/h – which is even greater than the delta of 2013 – riders now need Brembo brakes for only 5 seconds, during which the bikes cover 279 meters. The increased braking power is evident in the brake lever load, which has dropped to 5.5 kg compared to 5.7 kg in 2013.
This means that the braking distance has been reduced by 46 meters, a huge difference, going from 325 meters to 279 meters, while the braking time has decreased by almost 18%, from 6.1 seconds to 5.5 seconds – all with a reduced lever load of 0.2 kg.
A similar analysis can be made for the braking zone at the first corner of Montmelò: in 2013, MotoGP riders lost 222 km/h thanks to 5.9 seconds of braking and a brake lever load of 6.2 kg, advancing 318 meters in the process.
In 2025, the deceleration in this corner is 238 km/h, but only 257 meters and 4.6 seconds are needed to achieve it. The savings in this case are 80 meters and 1.3 seconds, also thanks to the increased brake lever load of the Brembo system, which has risen to 6.7 kg.