Text and Photographs : José Manuel Serrano Esparza
© jmse
Marc Márquez (Ducati Lenovo Team) has become MotoGP 2025 World Champion at the Motegi Circuit (Japan) after being second in the September 27 Saturday sprint race and third in the September 28 one, so racking up nine motorcycling world titles (seven in MotoGP, attained in 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2025; one in 125 cc racked up in 2010 and a further one in Moto2 nailed in 2012.
© jmse
This seventh MotoGP title just conquered by Marc Márquez in the Japan Grand Prix riding his gorgeous Ducati Desmosedici GP25 (the best MotoGP bike ever made), has been particularly significant, because of the overwhelming way in which he has dominated the competition throughout the whole season, winning nothing less than 11 Sunday races (Thailand GP, Argentina GP, Qatar GP, Aragón GP, Italy GP, Holland GP, Germany GP, Czech Republic GP, Austria GP, Hungary GP and San Marino GP), in addition to being second in the France GP and the Catalunya GP, without forgetting his 14 victories in the Saturday sprint races of Buriram, Termas de Río Hondo, Austin, Lusail, Jerez, Le Mans, Motorland, Mugello, Assen, Sachsenring, Brno, Spielberg, Balaton Park and Montmeló.
That´s to say, 25 victories from 34 possible.
Besides, he is presently commanding the general standing with 541 points and an advantage of 201 points over Álex Márquez (2nd with 340 points) and 267 over Pecco Bagnaia (3rd with 274 points), with five races to go.
© jmse
Therefore, Marc Márquez does consolidate as one of the best MotoGP pilots ever, along with Giacomo Agostini, Mike Hailwood and Valentino Rossi, though thanks to his huge talent, the way in which he has reached his victories and his sizeable weight in the evolution of the top motorcycling competition, he is perhaps the best rider of all time.
THE CLIMAX OF AN EPIC ACCOMPLISHMENT
© jmse
This seventh MotoGP World Championship just reaped by Marc Márquez after four years of titles draught, is the apex of an odyssey turned into feat, which began on July 19, 2020 in the Jerez GP, when the Cervera pilot had a fall in the curve 3 of that circuit, breaking his right arm humerus, in which he endured four surgeries, as well as experiencing a dramatic new physical and mental path that would change both his sporting career and life, making him reinventing himself after four seasons in which he couldn´t fight to get more MotoGP world titles following his halcyon days in Honda between 2013 and 2019 when won six MotoGP crowns on his Honda RC213V bike.
Four years during which his serious injury greatly dwindled his chances of victory in the MotoGP World Championship, to such an extent that he was 7th in the general standings in 2012, 13th in 2022 and 14th in 2023.
A clearly non-stop downward spiral, because in the aftermath of the aforementioned humerus injury, Marc Márquez wasn´t physically fit to ride the Honda RC213V, an exceedingly abrupt and difficult to handle motorcycle, the most untamable one ever together with the Ducati Desmosedici GP7 designed by Filippo Preziosi in 2007, with which Casey Stoner won the first MotoGP World Championship for the Borgo Panigale firm, and the Honda NSR 500 cc two-stroke taken to the limit by Mick Doohan between 1994 and 1998, when he won five consecutive MotoGP titles.
Therefore, Marc Márquez decided to abandon Honda and to run for the Gresini Racing Moto GP Team, a Ducati satellite, since he had realized that every Ducati MotoGP bike created by the genius Gigi Dall´Igna (General Manager of Ducati Lenovo and the man who has managed to beat all the Japanese MotoGP industry, achieving the greatest triumphs of the Italian firm in all of its history) were highly competitive and featured state-of-the-art mechanics and technology.
This way, Marc Márquez ran the MotoGP 2024 World Championship with a Ducati Desmosedici GP23 of Gresini Racing Team, a very inferior motorcycle performance wise in comparison to the Ducati Desmosedici GP24 ridden by Jorge Martín (Prima Pramac Racing), Pecco Bagnaia (Ducati Lenovo), Enea Bastianini (Ducati Lenovo) and Franco Morbidelli (Prima Pramac Racing).
In spite of it, he had a very good first half of 2024 season riding that bike, making astonishing times with the Ducati GP23, and in may of 2024, Marc Márquez threw an incredible gauntlet at the Borgo Panigale firm, asking to be hired as a rider for the official Ducati Lenovo Factory Team for the MotoGP 2025 World Championship or he would go to another rival team, and stating that he was ready to accept a huge salary reduction in comparison to the 25 million euros/year he earned in Honda.
This movement was utterly uncommon and unexpected.
The amazing context spawned huge stress in Ducati, because of two main reasons :
a) Jorge Martín was making a great season with the Prima Pramac Racing, a Ducati satellite team (he would win the 2024 MotoGP World Championship that year), so he undoubtedly deserved to be hired as a new pilot of the official Ducati Lenovo Factory Team for the 2025 season.
b) Pecco Bagnaia was at the moment the best Ducati Lenovo pilot in MotoGP and twice Champion of MotoGP (2022 and 2023), so replacing him with Marc Márquez would be a very difficult decision to justify.
In addition, the pilot from Turin is a highly beloved man, not only in Italy, but also by the entire paddock, since he is a great person and a true gentleman.
Notwithstanding, after the fifth race of the 2024 MotoGP World Championship, Ducati hired Marc Márquez for its Ducati Lenovo MotoGP factory team on June 5, 2024, for two seasons, 2025 and 2026, in a movement full of risks, but with the utter confidence that Marc Márquez would win the 2025 MotoGP World Championship with them, riding the Ducati GP25.
During the following months, Marc Márquez had a remarkable season, in which he gained a fairly commendable 3er position in the riders´ general standing of the MotoGP 2024 World Championship (won by Jorge Martín, with Pecco Bagnaia as runner-up), often putting both of them on the spot and easily surpassing Enea Bastianini (official pilot of the Ducati Factory Team alongside Pecco Bagnaia) and Franco Morbidelli (Prima Pramac Racing), also riding Ducati GP24, as well as winning three races (Motorland, Misano and Phillip Island), getting four runner-ups (Jerez, Le Mans, Sachsenring and Solidarity Grand Prix in Barcelona) and three third positions ( Montmeló, Misano and Motegui).
That´s to say, an amazing figure of ten podiums.
Besides, Marc Márquez had during that MotoGP 2024 season a far superior performance than Álex Márquez (8th with the Gresini Racing MotoGP), Fabio Di Giannantonio (10th with Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team) and Marco Bezecchi (12th with Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team), likewise using the Ducati GP23.
© jmse
This exploit accomplished by Marc Márquez particularly made a great impression on Gigi Dall ´Igna (General Manager of Ducati Lenovo MotoGP Team) and
© jmse
Davide Tardozzi (Racing Team Director of Ducati Lenovo MotoGP), who were the two persons better knowing the clear inferiority of the Ducati Desmosedici GP23 with respect to the Ducati Desmosedici GP24 bikes ridden by Jorge Martín (Prima Pramac Racing), Pecco Bagnaia (Ducati Lenovo) and Enea Bastianini (Ducati Lenovo), something that has also frequently been explained by Jaime Alguersuari Sr, Professor Emeritus of Motorcycling.
Needless to say that Marc Márquez´s extraordinary victory at Phillip Island (Australia) on October 20, 2024, after an epic fightback, in a tooth and nail duel with Jorge Martín, whom he overtook in a masterful way across the inner area of the circuit 4th curve, with three laps to go, brought about great accolades towards Marc Márquez by Ducati Lenovo.
A KEY DECISION TAKEN BY GIGI DALL´IGNA AND DAVIDE TARDOZZI
The passage of time has shown the pivotal weightiness and visionary nature of the decision made by Ducati on June 5, 2024, after some meetings of Ducati top brass at Borgo Panigale (Bologna), when the Italian motorcycling firm decided to get rid of Enea Bastianini (who would be 4th in the MotoGP World Championship of that year)
and hired Marc Márquez for the 2025 and 2026 seasons as Pecco Bagnaia´s teammate in Ducati Lenovo MotoGP.
This decision, which wasn´t easy at all, was grounded on the impressive telemetry data and stunning achievements made by Marc Márquez, glaringly in disadvantage with the Ducati Desmosedici GP23 (very inferior to the GP24) throughout the 2024 MotoGP World Championship, and was made by Gigi Dall´Igna and Davide Tardozzi (two men boasting huge experience and knowledge in bike competitions at peak level), with the approval of Claudio Domenicali (Ducati CEO).
And time has proven them right in their choice, with this dazzling seventh MotoGP World Championship clinched by Marc Márquez this year 2025, with which he has continued to display his exceptional riding technique, particularly standing out with his proficient way of controlling the front tire in the manner that he only knows to do and gives him a great advantage in races,
and the unique mode he faces the left curves, to such an extent that even the physical science has difficulties to explain, such as has often been described by Óscar Haro Tasende, Sporting Director of the LCR Honda MotoGP Team for many years and one of the persons better knowing Marc Márquez.
Because after Pecco Bagnaia (Ducati Lenovo best rider at the moment) lost the 2024 MotoGP World Championship (in spite of having won 11 races, a runner-up and four thirds positions) to Jorge Martín (Prima Pramac Racing), the most important thing for Ducati was that its official factory team won again the MotoGP World Championship in 2025.
Gigi Dall´Igna is arguably the engineer having displayed more knowledge, experience and intuition in the whole history of MotoGP, with a trajectory of 32 years at pinnacle level, throughout which he conquered 47 titles during his Aprilia stage : twenty-two in 125 cc (12 pilots titles and 10 of constructors), twenty in 250 cc (10 of pilots and 10 of constructors) and five in the Superbikes World Championship (two of pilots and three of constructors), in addition to the 10 MotoGP titles (three riders MotoGP World Championships won by Ducati with Pecco Bagnaia in 2022 and 2023, the riders MotoGP World title just nailed by Marc Márquez in 2025, and seven constructors MotoGP World Championships attained by Ducati in 2007, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Since his hiring by Ducati in November of 2013, the Genius from Thiene has been the fundamental man in the spectacular renaissance of Borgo Panigale firm within the MotoGP World Championship, managing to win races again with Andrea Dovizioso, Andrea Iannone, Danilo Petrucci and Jorge Lorenzo between 2016 and 2020, until from 2022, when Pecco Bagnaia won his first MotoGP World Championship title (he would rack up his second one in 2023), Ducati turned into the clear dominator of the most important motorcycling competition on earth, to such a degree that Jorge Martín (in the Prima Pramac Racing satellite team) conquered the MotoGP 2024 World Championship with a Ducati Desmosedici GP24, and the four first pilots in the general standing (Jorge Martín, Pecco Bagnaia, Marc Márquez and Enea Bastianini) rode Ducati bikes.
A crushing dominance having increased even more with this 2025 MotoGP World Championship just achieved by Marc Márquez, which strengthens an undeniable fact : the Italian motorcycling firm from Borgo panigale (Bologna) has been defeating the Japanese MotoGP firms by a landslide for four years, through ingenuity, strenuous effort and passion, something truly praiseworthy, because Honda and Yamaha have got much more money and resources of all kind to invest on R & D.
It must be underscored that during his tenure as a technical director of the Aprilia Racing Department, Gigi Dall´Igna was the mastermind in the development of the extraordinary Aprilia RSV4 with which Max Biaggi won two World Superbikes Championships in 2010 and 2012 and whose superb narrow V4-cylinder engine, able to deliver a power of 210 hp and propel the bike up to 330 km/h, was a wonder of compactness and timing system layout sophistication, as well as featuring a monolithic base utterly integrating the cylinder sleeves, which were superficially hardened with a galvanic treatment of silicon carbides and a nickel matrix, which resulted in an amazing lightweight of the powerplant.
That Aprilia RSV4 was a real milestone in terms of power output, miniaturization and low weight, reaching the figure of 13,500 rpm in the road version and 15,000 rpm in the Superbike one, and incorporated a variable geometry frame in synergy with the 65º cylinders angle.
And Davide Tardozzi is one of the men sporting deeper insight and experience in MotoGP races, was third in the 1988 World SBK Championship in 1988 with a Bimota YB4 with 750 cc Yamaha engine, seven times Italy Champion of Superbikes and Europe Champion of Superbikes 750 cc in 1991, subsequently being Ducati Team Manager during nineties and one of the great architects of the Ducati golden days in the SBK World Championship with Carl Fogarty, Troy Corser, James Toseland and Troy Bayliss, winning a total of 8 SBK World Championships, after which he became Team Manager of the Official BMW Motorrad for the 2011 SBK World Championship, until a few years later he came back to Ducati as General Coordinator.
On the other hand, leveraging the great sixth sense that has always defined him, during the 2024 season Gigi Dall´Igna sent Mattia Sereni (a great electronic engineer from Ducati) to the box of Gresini Racing MotoGP Team, to keep updated of Marc Márquez´s riding and telemetry data on a daily basis.
That´s to say, some months before hiring him for its official factory team, Ducati did know perfectly who was at the moment and still is, by far, the best MotoGP pilot in the world and were ready to get him to the Ducati Lenovo Team.
DUCATI MANUFACTURES THE BEST MOTOGP BIKES OF ALL TIME
During his twelve years in Ducati between 2013 and 2025, the genius Gigi Dall´Igna has gone beyond himself and has managed to create a new breed of Ducati MotoGP bikes being very different to the traditional Ducatis taking part in this competition, whose top speed and power were colossal, but had the drawback of being rather abrupt, difficult to control by the rider, and whose cornering was much slower than the rest MotoGP bikes from other brands.
So much so that the Ducati MotoGP motorcycles devised by Gigi Dall´Igna and having won the riders MotoGP World Champioships in 2022, 2023 and 2025, are far more versatile bikes, easier to handle and adaptable to very different profiles of pilots and setups, keeping a tremendous maximum speed, unutterable instantaneous acceleration and startling braking ability (the three main diachronic hallmarks of the Ducati MotoGP bikes), but now with a very improved cornering (being able to compete in this scope with the best Japanese and European motorcycles), a far superior bike stability and an incredible potential to win races in all kind of circuits.
To be able to balance all of these commendable qualities in a host of different aspects with the very special and complex desmodromic system of distribution (with each valve opened and closed by its own set of dedicated cam lobes and rocker arms, driving the four cylinder Ducati MotoGP bikes, optimized for second to none performance at the highest rpm, with praiseworthy accuracy, to draw all the feasible potential from the engine, simultaneously reducing the frictions at the lowest rpm), is something of extreme difficulty and an extraordinary technological achievement.
And this has been a decisive factor in this 2025 MotoGP World Championship just conquered by Marc Márquez with the Ducati Desmosedici GP25 (the best MotoGP bike hitherto), in the same way as happened in the two MotoGP world titles wrapped up by Pecco Bagnaia in 2022 and 2023.
Because however incredible it may seem, during his ten years in Honda, the pilot from Cervera never had the best bike of the starting grid.
And if he could win the six MotoGP World Champioships in 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 with the Hamamatsu (Shizuoka) Japanese firm, was thanks to his exceptional talent and ability of adaptation to any motorcycle.
Because only he could successfully ride the Honda RC213V, a hugely convulse and very hard to control bike, as was proved by the inferior results, very far from him, obtained with that same bike by great riders like Dani Pedrosa, Jorge Lorenzo, Paul Espargaró and so forth.
Id est, clearly, the main architect of those six MotoGP World Championships nailed by Marc Márquez between 2013 and 2019 wasn´t Honda, but Marc Márquez, without whom the Japanese motorcycling firm would have never been able to win all those titles with that bike not being among the best of the MotoGP grid.
This unheard-of fact was perfectly known not only by Gigi Dall´Igna and Davide Tardozzi, but also by
Claudio Domenicali, Ducati CEO and an engineer featuring very deep knowledge and vast experience in the competition, who was Leader of Ducati Projects between 1991 and 1997, creator between 1993 and 1995 along with Massimo Bordi of the technical part of the wonderful Ducati Supermono (a gorgeous single-cylinder state-of-the-art 500 cc bike delivering 75 hp and designed by Pierre Terblanche), Technical Director of Ducati between 2005 and 2009, General Manager of Operations and Product Development and Member of the Board of Directors of Ducati after the sale of Ducati Motor Holding to Audi in 2012, as well as being a passionate enthusiast of MotoGP races.
STERLING EVOLUTION AS A RIDER AND CHAMPION CHARACTER EVEN GREATER THAN DURING HIS STAGE IN HONDA
Two well-known motorcycling personalities who had quickly grasped that Marc Márquez would dominate in a crushing way the 2025GP World Championship, made highly meaningful speeches :
a) Nadia Padovani, owner and director of the Gresini Racing MotoGP Team, who immediately after the end of the 2024 MotoGP World Championship in which Marc Márquez (only beaten by Jorge Martín and Pecco Bagnaia, whom he disputed the title in some stages of the season) clinched an incredible third position with a Ducati Desmosedici GP23, commented that 2024 had been a dream year, being very happy of having had him among them, in addition to having been able to give him the adequate atmosphere for the necessary calm indispensable to get his physical and mental recovery from those terrible years after his injury, and bring him back to the place where he deserved to be.
Moreover, Nadia Padovani expressed her satisfaction because the Gresini Racing MotoGP Team had been the squad returning sporting life to Marc Márquez, managing to turn him into a great pilot again, in addition to making him believe in himself, and underlined her convition that the rider from Cervera would win the 2025 MotoGP World Championship.
b) Giacomo Agostini, who after Marc Márquez´s great riding exhibition during the Argentina MotoGP Grand Prix at the Termas de Río Hondo circuit in the sprint race of Saturday Marc 15, 2025 and the race of Sunday March, 16 the following day, said in an interview in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica that Marc Márquez (whom he praised a great deal, revealing great admiration for him), is a rider from other galaxy and would surpass Valentino Rossi´s numbers, but humorously stating that he hoped that he didn´t reach his.
Besides, the winner of 15 world championships highlighted the great economical sacrifice Marc Márquez had made, renouncing to his whopping salary in Honda to be hired by Ducati.
And Giacomo Agostini, the most laureated pilot ever, winner of 8 500 cc World Championship (in 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972 and 1975) and 7 350 cc World Championship (in 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973 and 1974) with MV Agusta, predicted that Marc Márquez would win the 2025 MotoGP World Championship with outstanding authority.
And he wasn´t wrong, because Marc Márquez has won the 2025 MotoGP World Championship in an overwhelming way, being victorious in 11 Sunday races and 14 Saturday sprint races, in very different circuits, both the most favourable ones to his riding style and others in which he didn´t start as the favourite.
A display of power framed by a great transformation and evolution.
Because Marc Márquez´s riding style has changed.
He has learned to control his emotions and his innate aggressiveness, as well as having become a phenomenal expert in the management of all and every race.
It isn´t merely speed what he is exhibiting, but also a total sway on each race circumstances, proving an astounding consistency.
Marc Márquez is living in Ducati a second glorious stage as a pilot, knowing how to combine his indescribable gift and passion with the great experience gleaned in MotoGP since 2013, has learnt to control his impulses and has demonstrated to be able to channel his energy in a constructive way.
On the other hand, it is particularly laudable how Marc has managed to keep alive the competitive flame, in spite of the huge sufferings he has endured for four years and that there were even periods during which he didn´t even know if he could ride a bike again.
Now he is stronger and more convinced than ever, tries to steadily be faster and faster and strives to his utmost to grasp every aspect of the bike, each detail of the tires performance (with admirable handling of them) and the best possible setup.
Marc Márquez has revamped the MotoGP World Championship, which with him as champion again, has reached a towering plus of emotion and interest, as well as having significantly raised the number of spectators attending the circuits all over the world.
And there are millions of Marc Márquez fans in the five continents.
Because he is by far the best MotoGP rider, a genius having set new standards.
A VERY IMPORTANT TRIUMPH WHICH HAS CHANGED THE HISTORY OF MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP AND GOES FAR BEYOND THE SPORTING SPHERE
This seventh MotoGP World Championship won by Marc Márquez is something of huge significance and greatly transcending the motorcycling scope.
Because to all intents and purposes, this 2025 MotoGP World Cup has been ruled by a colossal heroic deed with exceedingly emotional backdrop, since many enthusiasts had thought that perhaps Marc Márquez was finished and his motorcycling career had ended.
But the rider from Cervera had the need of recovering himself and unleash his competitive gen again.
He has been able to find the motivation after having lost everything.
His history is to a great extent one of steady personal self-improvement, facing very adverse circumnstances, with immense courage, perseverance, passion for the two wheels sport and a bombproof mental strength.
He had to fight tooth and nail to be in Ducati, and the historical exploit of this 2025 MotoGP World Championship racked up by him with unusual easiness, stems from his greatness and fighting spirit as a human being, having enabled him to reinvent himself and reach again success when least expected.
On the other hand, Marc Márquez has strenuously worked with some physical coaches who have created a program of practices adapted to his limitations after the injury in his right arm humerus, focusing above all on optimizing the efficiency and reducing the physical wear and tear.
This has changed a drastic change for the rider from Cervera, who throughout his stage in Honda was used to using his brute strength and experiencing an ongoing physical exhaustion to dominate the Honda RC213V.
He isn´t the pilot attacking from the first to the last lap any more.
He has learnt to keep calm until the key instants arrive, knows when to attack, when to defend his position and is able to accurately read each race development and circumnstances, having also implemented a riding style on the bike with fewer movements than during his period with Honda.
And he is by far, at the moment, the MotoGP rider sporting more ability to prompt passion in the stands, to keep alive the interest for this competition and to thrill the spectators, both in every circuit and on TV, with the emotions and joy he gives them away, in addition to having proved that age is not an obstacle when you preserve intact the love and passion for bikes.
Furthermore, he has shown that experience can make up for the partial loss of physical ability.
Marc Márquez is on another level, plays in a different league.
He has plainly controlled and led vast majority of 2025 MotoGP World Championship races, seeming like having never gone to the limit, because he has got a lot of margin for improvement, since he has very fastly adapted to the Ducati Desmosedici GP25, Gigi Dall´Igna´s masterpiece, with which he hasn´t wanted to impose his riding style of his stage in Honda, but has adjusted to it, which speaks volumes about his stature as a pilot, because the Ducati is a completely different motorcycle.
A RIDER BRINGING ABOUT A GREAT IMPACT IN DUCATI
Since his very arrival at the official factory Ducati Lenovo MotoGP team, Marc Márquez´s sway in the Borgo Panigale motorcycling firm has been very deep, to such an extent that Ducati engineers talk about a new era and a different way to understand races, because the rider from Cervera has brought with him the winning mentality only owned by true champions, enhanced by his built-in top speed, insight and huge experience.
Such as has often been explained by Gigi Dall´Igna, Marc Márquez has raised the bar of all the official factory Ducati Lenovo MotoGP team with his working ethics, his attention to detail, his ability to keep cool under pressure and his unquenchable thirst of technical knowledge, in such a way that the Ducati Desmosedici GP25 bike has evolved in a manner that engineers hadn´t been able to anticipate, guided by the comments, indications and suggestions made by the pilot from Cervera, in the frame of a created ambience in which his experience is being fairly valuable.
Even, some working protocols within the Ducati Lenovo team box have been modified, and he is having an outstanding specific weight in the technical development of the bike, in such a way that the Ducati squad hasn´t hesitated to utterly adapt its structure to leverage the maximum feasible performance from Marc Márquez´s talent.
On the other hand, the way in which Marc Márquez nowadays manages races is much better than during his Honda period, with a strategy having significantly evolved, because unlike his years in the Japanese company, defined by an exceedingly instinctive behaviour in the circuits, based on immediate reactions, everything is at present fruit of a deeper and meditated planning, with a much more detailed analysis in each possible scenery.
And the positive atmosphere breathed inside the Ducati Lenovo Box every weekend of MotoGP race is full of energy and the feeling that they are taking part in something historical.
Besides, Marc Márquez has already proved in Ducati that he is a rider boasting great ability to communicate with his engineers, mechanics and technicians in the most diverse areas, enormously helping the team to identify the problems and solve them, thanks to his very accurate indications and his great talent to make engineers understand what he wants to convey them while they see the telemetry data.
All of this has boosted the group cohesion, generating a great confidence within the Ducati Lenovo MotoGP team.
Needless to say that Marc Márquez´s epic deed going from top to the lowest and then coming back to the summit,
is something truly staggering and has brought into being a deep impression inside Ducati Corse.
Because he also makes a difference as the rider better knowing to detect the aspects where the bike fails and what it needs to enable him to win, and the one making the most precise suggestions to both engineers and mechanics to do the optimum bike setup.
It´s no wonder that every engineer and mechanic having worked with Marc Márquez (among them Santi Hernández, Frankie Carchedi, Marco Rigamonti, Michele Ducoli and Javier Ortiz) agree that he is a genius when it comes to configure the bike to make it go fast in each circuit, because he has an absolute need to win, it is like oxygene for him, whose biotope is the maximum speed possible, not to ever surrender and take right decisions in the most extreme contexts, always having the cold blood and gift to think what he needs to do at every moment during races.
Moreover, he is a very brave pilot, featuring great intelligence and temperament, seeming to have a further gear in the crunch time of competitions.
A SECOND STAGE AS MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPION THAT PERHAPS HAS JUT BEGUN
In the light of what has been seen, it is possible that the 2025 MotoGP World Championship just conquered by Marc Márquez with great authority be only the beginning of his second period as undisputable number 1 of this competition, since there is a great difference between him and the rest of pilots at the moment.
Likewise, the rider from Cervera is also a genius building human relationships and a very special chemistry with mechanics and engineers, in such a way that all the persons with whom he works finally love him, on realizing the huge level of effort and energy he puts to get that rapport.
This is another seminal factor, because Marc Márquez´s Ducati Lenovo team, integrated by Marco Rigamonti (Track Engineer), Mattia Sereni (Electronic Engineer), Michele Ducoli (Chief of Mechanics), the mechanics Marco Polastri, Fabio Morandini, Giuliano Poletti, Federico Colombo and Javier Ortiz, along with Rhys Holmes (specialist in Öhlins shock absorbers) do piecework, with massive physical and mental weariness, being most of the year far from their most beloved relatives, so the motivational and enjoyment surplus provided by Marc Márquez has increased the performance of them all.
And it must also be mentioned the important work made by José Luis Martínez, former rider, Spanish Champion of Motocross and Marc Márquez´s personal assistant training with him and accompanying him in every race and trip.
On the other hand, Marc Márquez is not only the fastest pilot.
He also has a number of other virtues, including the way in which he arranges everything in advance, his very efficient manner to think during each competition, and how he knows how to solve highly stressful situations, with a unique talent to discern what he need to do at every moment in each sprint or Sunday race, with the added benefit of his tremendous will and mental strength.
He is also a competitive animal, a rider not seeing his limits and being always growing up.
Evidence clearly suggests that Ducati Lenovo is focusing and is going to increasingly concentrate its technical approach on Marc Márquez and his squad of engineers, mechanics and so on, not only because he is now the MotoGP World Champion, but because he is the Borgo Panigale rider with more chances to win the title in the forthcoming years.
But in my opinion, we should be wise in some scopes :
a) The debate about who is the best MotoGP pilot of all time isn´t easy to settle, because each reference-class rider has got his time, his circumnstances, different motorcycles technologies, etc, with many variables and different contexts having an influence.
Giacomo Agostini is the pilot having conquered more world titles (nothing less than 15, eight in 500 cc and seven in 350 cc), which bears a lot of speficic diachronic weight, and his famous MV Agusta 500 cc V3 delivering 84 hp, featuring four valves per cylinder and a highly sophisticated oil circuit, was a technological icon.
Valentino Rossi has been the pilot having made more for the preservation and development of MotoGP competition, in addition to undoubtedly also being one of the four best ever, with nine world titles won (seven in 500 cc and MotoGP), one in 250 cc and one in 125 cc, marking an era both during his stage in Honda, with which he conquered three titles (in 2001 and 2002 with a Honda NSR 500 cc two-stroke, and in 2003, season in which the engineer Shinichi Kokubu designed the chassis of the new Honda RC211V 4T) and in Yamaha (with which he clinched four MotoGP World titles, in 2004, 2005, 2008 and 2009 with his Yamaha YZR-M1), as well as standing out because of his great symbiosis with his mechanic chief Jeremy Burgess (who was with him during the seven MotoGP titles he racked up).
On his turn, Mike Hailwood also attained nine world titles (four of 500 cc in 1962, 1963, 1964 and 1965, two of 350 cc in 1966 and 1967 and three of 250 cc in 1961, 1966 and 1967), in addition to having won nothing less than fourteen times the Isle of Man TT, including his mythical victory in 1978, being 38 year old, riding a two-cylinder Ducati 900SS featuring bevel gears, defeating all the four-cylinder Japanese bikes from different brands.
But Marc Márquez is currently 32 years old, is in high spirits and has come back when many presumed him dead, in spite of which Gigi Dall´Igna (Ducati Corse General Manager), Davide Tardozzi ( Ducati Corse Team Manager), Mauro Grassilli (Ducati Corse Sporting Director), Davide Barana (Ducati Corse Technical Director) and Riccardo Savin ( Ducati Corse MotoGP Project Director) knew from the 2024 season that Marc Márquez went on being the best MotoGP rider on earth, so they decided to hire him to win the MotoGP World Championship again, which they have accomplished.
The present context oozes a huge emotional intensity, because Marc Márquez is very near to turn into the best MotoGP pilot ever, if he isn´t yet, because it is important to measure the riders for what they have done and how they have achieved it, and he seems to be in a position to win at least two MotoGP World Championships more, in 2026 and 2027, because there isn´t any rider being at his level.
And from a technological viewpoint, Ducati is at the moment far ahead of the rest of MotoGP Japanese and European brands, including a cutting-edge aerodynamics, in which two key factors have become prominent :
a) Gigi Dall´Igna´s brilliance with the different lateral front wings he creates, providing the front train with more stability, generating a bigger downforce enabling that the whole bike, including its front area, to be in contact with the ground at every moment, avoiding wheelies, increasing the powerplant drive and getting a faster speed, both in straight stretches and through curves.
b) The CFD (Computerized Fluid Dynamics) used by Edoardo Lenoci ( Ducati Manager of Aerodynamic Development) in the design of the MotoGP Ducati bikes fairings and which is able to simulate with great accuracy in a computer the track conditions and the way in which the air flow makes contact with the motorcycle, data that are leveraged to obtain an extraordinary aerodynamic tuning, different for each circuit, and able to produce highly efficient levels of downforce, something commendable, because the aerodynamic aspects of MotoGP prototypes are much more complex than in Formula 1 cars, since the gravity center is in constant movement and the quantity of sensations experienced by a motorcycle rider is much bigger.
Ducati Lenovo has had this year within its rank Marc Márquez, the best pilot of MotoGP grid, riding the Ducati Desmosedici GP25, the best MotoGP bike ever made hitherto.
Therefore, it seems clear that the pilot from Cervera has come back to stay and will try to conquer more world titles of the queen category during the next seasons.
And it appears to be difficult that any other MotoGP rider from a Japanese or a different European brand can dispute Ducati throughout the next two years the great hegemony it presently has in the top motorcycling competition.
Copyright Text and Photographs : José Manuel Serrano Esparza
