Thomas Lüthi
For 2018, Morbidelli was promoted to the MotoGP squad alongside his Moto2 runner-up Thomas Lüthi. Morbidelli was able to consistently finish in the low point-scoring positions, thus being crowned rookie of the year, but Lüthi failed to score a single point that season. The team finished second-to-last in the team's championship in 11th. During the course of the season, team leader Bartholemy left the team by “mutual agreement”, according to a Marc VDS statement, after reports in German media claimed he had been embezzling team funds. As a result of this upheaval and a desire of the MotoGP commercial rights holder Dorna Sports to reduce grid sizes, Marc VDS was dropped from the MotoGP class at the end of 2018.