Why Miller's Ducati move completes MotoGP's changing of the guard

This year, for the first time in a long while, world motorsport feels like it is going through a major shake-up. Nowhere is that evidenced more than in the state of the MotoGP rider market - and on Wednesday, the latest big move was completed.

Next year, one-time MotoGP race winner Jack Miller will join the factory Ducati squad, marking the Italian marque's first punt on youth for five years when Andrea Iannone also graduated from Pramac to its works outfit.

Miller getting his big chance is just one of several key moves on the grid teeing up MotoGP for a radically different look in the coming decade.

It's hard to look past the fact that the grid is stuck in a vice of Marc Marquez and Honda's making. The 27-year-old turned up in the premier class as a fresh-faced 20-year-old in 2013 and has rewritten the history books, winning 56 grands prix and six world titles in that period to become one of motorcycle racing's most successful riders. And he's not even reached his peak yet.

Valentino Rossi's extensive 20-plus-year career makes it totally reasonable to believe Marquez has got at least another 10 years in him - four of those with Honda thanks to his own new contract - and probably more after that.

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For all their feuding and rivalry, both Rossi and Marquez are not that different as people. Both are driven by not just a desire to win, but by a pure love for motorcycle racing. It's an infectious trait, but one that doesn't exactly warm the hearts of rivals desperately trying to beat them.

Marquez has been largely unrivalled in his tenure. Though the blot on his copybook was his failure to win the title in 2015, he didn't necessarily lose it to a superior Jorge Lorenzo. Taking nothing away from Lorenzo, it was Marquez who sealed his own downfall by his inability to adapt to a difficult RC213V - something he has not repeated since.

Andrea Dovizioso gave him a run for his money in 2017, but Marquez still emerged 37 points clear in the end after a more consistent second half to an odd season. Ducati's team leader was runner-up again in 2018, but 76 points behind. The 34-year-old proved Marquez's nearest challenger last season, but wound up 151 points adrift in a season in which the Honda rider would fail to visit the podium only once.

Marquez turned up in the premier class as a fresh-faced 20-year-old in 2013 and has rewritten the history books

Since 2017, 41-year-old Rossi has won once, Dovizioso looks to have passed his prime - from six wins in 2017, he scored four in 2018 and only two last year - while both Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa have retired following sharp declines in fortune. And in the midst of all of that, new life has sprouted through the grid.

Suzuki fields a line-up of Alex Rins and Joan Mir which, combined, is only six years older than Rossi, and will do so for at least two more years. KTM has become MotoGP's nursery, with the likes of Brad Binder, Iker Lecuona and Miguel Oliveira the talents it has brought up in the last year. Yamaha has pitched Maverick Vinales alongside 2019's standout rookie Fabio Quartararo for 2021, while Ducati's stable looks like it will be complimented by Francesco Bagnaia and either Jorge Martin or Enea Bastianini from Moto2 at Pramac next year.

The status of an elder legend can't be denied, but their careers have time limits. The wins for Dovizioso and 29-year-old team-mate Danilo Petrucci - who took his first MotoGP win after 124 starts at Mugello - aside, last year was dominated by youth.

Marquez romped to the title with 12 wins; Vinales managed two victories and came close to a third at Phillip Island, backing those up with four more podiums in the second half of the year; Rins gave Suzuki a brace of wins for the first time since 2000, while Quartararo reached the rostrum seven times on the Petronas SRT Yamaha and offered Marquez a scare or two across the campaign.

Quartararo's impressive debut season was a watershed moment for Yamaha. Riding the 'B-spec' M1 to begin with, the French 21-year-old's early-season performances brought Yamaha to the realisation that its bike maybe hadn't been as bad as it appeared across 2017 and 2018.

Vinales began to work more methodically with his bike and found a route out of his struggles, particularly in the early stages of races, and opted against an updated carbon swingarm and new exhaust mid-season. Rossi, by contrast, did initially race with them at Misano - having frequently requested the swingarm - but failed to make any significant leaps in form.

In the winter, Rossi repeatedly stated he still felt he was missing something with the 2020-spec bike while Vinales felt ready to take on the world.

There will always be a place for experience, but youth brings a fresh perspective. And ultimately, as well as the immense talent MotoGP's young stars possess, it is a new perspective that will be needed to topple Marquez and Honda.

Yamaha realised this and, after pressing Rossi for an immediate decision on his future at the beginning of the year, took the bold step of replacing him with Quartararo. Suzuki saw no benefit to having an experienced hand when its 'all-the-young-dudes' ethos has worked so well, while Ducati saw no need to wait for racing to resume this year to assess Miller. After all, his two years as the factory's work horse at Pramac and the five podiums he achieved last year gave his CV a nice shine.

Commenting in his blog on his "dream" move, Miller has seen the change being had throughout the grid.

He wrote: "I remember thinking last year that I felt the rider market in MotoGP was in for a bit of a shake-up in the short-term because of the way Marc has been on top most of the time since he's been in. He's only a couple of years older than me, but at first it was the older guys like Valentino, Jorge and Dani who were his main opponents.

"But things have changed. Yamaha have Maverick, who is my age (25), Suzuki have Alex and Joan, and I was hoping Ducati would see me as their young guy who has been around for a while but is still pretty young to get into that conversation.

"Marc is the benchmark, so the main goal for all of the other factories is to get somewhere close to him. For me the big switch-up was Yamaha bringing in Fabio for next year to replace Rossi - it was an inevitable decision but one that had to be done."

There will always be a place for experience, but youth brings a fresh perspective. Ultimately, as well as the immense talent MotoGP's young stars possess, it is a new perspective that will topple Marquez and Honda

The grid will still have its experience next year. All fingers point towards Rossi signing on for one more year with SRT, while Dovizioso will probably remain a factory rider despite not seeing eye to eye with Ducati yet over his new deal. But that in itself also shows just where teams are now looking.

Ducati claims its is avoiding big money deals due to the financial squeeze coronavirus has wrought. But where just a couple of years ago it would have happily dipped its hands in its pockets for Dovizioso, the current situation suggests Ducati is now looking beyond.

The only inevitability in life is that time passes and change must happen. That is ringing true for the current crop of veterans as MotoGP gets set to head into a new era with a new generation of heroes. And it's something MotoGP will be all the better for...