Franco Morbidelli (born 4 December 1994) is an Italian Grand Prix motorcycle racer in MotoGP class, riding for Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team team. He became champion in the 2013 European Superstock 600 Championship, and the 2017 Moto2 World Championship.

Franco Morbidelli was born in Rome to a Brazilian mother, Cristina, and an Italian father, Livio Morbidelli, the latter of whom is a former motorcycle racer, finishing runner-up in the 80 cc and 125 cc classes of the Italian national championships. Livio recognized his son's potential from a young age but did not have the resources to support a racing career. Through an old racing companion Graziano Rossi, father of 9-time world champion Valentino Rossi, Livio Morbidelli learned of the motorcycle training hotbed in Tavullia. The family sold their home in Rome and moved to Tavullia to support Franco's race career ambitions. This training with Rossi became the precursor to what is now known as the VR46 Academy for racers, of which Morbidelli later became the first official member. Despite the common misconception, he is not related to Giancarlo Morbidelli, manufacturer of the Morbidelli Grand Prix racing bikes, or his son, former Italian F1 driver Gianni Morbidelli. In January 2013, Morbidelli's father committed suicide.

As a teen, Morbidelli was poised to enter the Spanish CEV 125cc championship, one of the main feeder series for a Grand Prix motorcycle career. However a lack of funding prevented him from entering, and he instead found a ride in the European Superstock 600 championship for 2011. Staying in the series for 2012, and 2013, Morbidelli got seat at Team Italia aboard a Kawasaki, for a third season in the class in 2013, ultimately winning the championship with two wins and three 2nd places.

As a result of his success in the Superstock championship, Morbidelli earned a place as a wild-card entry rider for Gresini in three rounds of the Moto2 championship. He did not score any points in the three races, finishing 20th in Misano, 18th in Japan, and 17th in Valencia.

Morbidelli joined the Moto2 class full-time in 2014 with the Italtrans Racing Team, and outscored his more experienced teammate and former 125cc Champion Julián Simón, finishing with 75 points compared to Simón's 56. He stayed with the team in 2015, and got his first podium, a third place finish, at the Indianapolis Grand Prix. He ended the season tenth in the standings, with 90 points.

In 2016, Morbidelli joined the Marc VDS Racing Team, partnering Álex Márquez. After a slow start, he finished the season strongly with five consecutive podium finishes, eight podiums in total (four second places, and four third places), and finished 4th in the standings, with 213 points. For 2017, he was a favourite for the title and took his first win at the opening race at Qatar accordingly. He won a total of eight races during the season, with an additional four podium finishes, as he won the 2017 Moto2 World Championship with Marc VDS in the Malaysian GP, after his closest championship contender Thomas Lüthi was declared unfit for the Malaysian race, following a crash at qualifying.

Morbidelli moved up the MotoGP class in 2018, still with the Marc VDS team on a Honda bike, the 2017-spec Honda RC213V. He was partnered by his 2017 Moto2 title rival Thomas Lüthi, who failed to score a single point that season, on the same machinery. Morbidelli finished the season in 15th place with 50 points, four points ahead of Hafizh Syahrin on the Tech3 Yamaha, thus winning rookie of the year.

For 2019, as Marc VDS left the premier class, Morbidelli signed with the newly formed Petronas SRT team on a two-year deal to ride an "A-spec" satellite Yamaha alongside rookie Fabio Quartararo. With 115 points, he finished tenth in the riders' championship, finishing in the top ten point scoring places regularly.