Ducati is being tipped to enjoy a meaningful initial advantage over its MotoGP rivals at the outset of the championship's next rules era arriving in 2027.

MotoGP is switching to 850cc bikes (instead of the current 1,000cc machines) and Pirelli tyres (instead of Michelin rubber) next year, with the regulations also tightening aero restrictions and forbidding the use of ride height devices.

The 850cc prototypes are already testing extensively, and KTM tester Pol Espargaro - who also works as an analyst for Spanish broadcaster DAZN - is among the riders who have already accrued considerable mileage with the next-generation bikes.

Espargaro was testing at Mugello right before being called up to replace Maverick Vinales on the current bike in the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. That Mugello test - which featured every manufacturer bar Yamaha - was headed up convincingly by Ducati and its test rider/World Superbike leader Nicolo Bulega.

"Apart from the beginning of the year, that maybe some manufacturers are gonna start faster than the others, [but] when everyone more or less is gonna be on the same level, even maybe second year, the competition is gonna be super close. But it will take time," Espargaro assessed - and he gave a clear hint that that assessment was based on what he'd seen from the 850cc Ducati so far.

His expectation is also that Ducati will benefit significantly from its current successes with the Panigale V4 R in the World Superbike championship, which currently uses Pirelli rubber.

"It's easy to think that Ducati is gonna be insane," Espargaro continued.

"It's gonna be fast from the first day because they have all the information from Superbike.

"At the end, it [the 850cc bike] is a kind of superbike - it's not changing much from Superbike.

"They [Ducati] are gonna have some advantage, especially how to treat the tyres, what they need to do on the tyres to make them better in the races, or to perform better over one lap.

"They have a lot of information that the other manufacturers don't, the others that are not in Superbike."

Of Ducati's MotoGP peers, Honda and Yamaha also have a presence in WorldSBK.

However, while Ducati has won all 24 races of the season so far (23 with Bulega and one with Iker Lecuona), and has locked out the podium in 18 races, Yamaha hasn't troubled the top three - while the Hondas have not finished better than 10th, once, at the time of writing.

A new rider hierarchy?

Espargaro was really caught off-guard by how difficult he'd found adapting back to the current 1,000cc KTM RC16 after his 850cc development work.

He described himself as "feeling like a rookie" during the Silverstone weekend, and clearly struggled to extract the same kind of performance he had shown standing in for Vinales the year before.

And Espargaro went as far as to claim that riders coming out of Moto2 next year - with its less powerful bikes and Pirelli rubber - will have a "big advantage" at the outset.

The '27 rookie crop is set to include the aforementioned Bulega and Moto2 graduates Izan Guevara, Senna Agius, David Alonso and Dani Holgado, the latter of whom Espargaro mentors.

"You cannot believe how much the category will change next year and how many riders are going to struggle in this new category. It's insane," Espargaro mused, despite describing the switch from 1,000cc to the 850cc bike as "easy" compared to the opposite transition.

"I feel more ready to ride a Moto2 than MotoGP, you know? I was with Holgado (above, left, with Pol), before the start of his second [Moto2 practice] session in the afternoon, and I was talking to him, chatting - and it's what I felt, I felt a little bit closer, seeing how they ride and looking at some data, to the Moto2 than to the MotoGP, the actual MotoGP.

"The change is insane, and it's gonna be a challenge for the MotoGP current riders, that are on the 1,000cc bike with the Michelins, against the Moto2 guys that are gonna come next year.

"They are gonna be insanely fast, so it's gonna be a big challenge for them."