When two perfectionists collide in the pursuit of racing excellence, even they can’t help but marvel at each other’s relentless drive. No wonder they call Dall’Igna the Marc Marquez of pit lane…
To climb to the very summit of motorcycle racing you need a whole armoury of abilities: riding skill, bravery, determination, racecraft, focus, the willingness to delete everything else from your life, the appetite to get smashed up and keep coming back for more – and intelligence. Lots of intelligence.
When Marc Marquez quit Honda at the end of 2023 to join Gresini Ducati he was already thinking way ahead, formulating a plan that should have him fighting for the title in 2025 and 2026.
“In 2023 my mentality was super-clear,” says Marquez, who won the MotoGP crown six times with Honda between 2013 and 2019. “I knew if I stayed at Honda (until his four-year contract expired at the end of 2024) and finished every race in 10th, 12th or ninth position, I wouldn’t have the chance to be in an official team for 2025 and 2026. Maybe I would have had the chance to be in asatellite team for two years. So I took a lot of risks to move from Honda to Gresini, with the target to be in an official team in 2025, so when I made that move I was looking more at 2025 and 2026 than at 2024.”
Of course, anyone can have a plan – making that plan work is another thing entirely. At the start of last season Marquez knew he wouldn’t have many races to convince Ducati factory bosses he still had enough speed and desire to deserve a factory ride.
“So I tried to concentrate a lot on myself at the first races and I tried to be super-precise in my comments to my engineers to have a good evolution,” he says.
And that’s exactly what happened. At last April’s Spanish GP he was fast enough aboard his Desmosedici GP23 to fight factory GP24 champion Pecco Bagnaia for the win. Weeks later Ducati Corse chief Gigi Dall’Igna signed Marquez to his factory team instead of Jorge Martin, who went on to win the 2024 title. And in November Marquez had his first ride on a GP25. He was immediately very fast.
Perhaps Dall’Igna chose Marquez because Ducati’s grey wizard is the Marquez of pit lane: all that counts is winning and you win by any means necessary. While Marquez introduced new ways of riding to MotoGP, Dall’Igna introduced new technologies, like tuned mass dampers, downforce aerodynamics, holeshot devices, ride-height adjusters and all kinds of computer wizardry – artificial intelligence, geometric deep learning and so on.
No wonder the pair have quickly built a rapport.
“Sometimes I joke with Gigi. I say to him, ‘If you were a rider I would be scared about your mentality!’. With Gigi it’s never enough. Even right now, when the Ducati is the best bike on the grid, he keeps pushing. If another manufacturer leads a free practice session, his face changes – he’s already worried. This is the difference – it’s competition spirit.”
THE COMPLETE PACKAGE
Marquez doesn’t only have huge respect for Dall’Igna’s engineering abilities, he understands that the Italian’s organisational abilities are also vital.
“There are many good engineers who can design something incredible but not many of them are able to organise everything. Of course Gigi’s level of engineering is super-high but his level to coordinate all the things in the bike is incredible.
“All things are connected – the tyres to the rims, the chain to the engine, the engine to the chassis. And he is also super-good in the way that he connects all the people and all the designers.”
Why does Marquez think Dall’Igna chose him over Martin?
“My experience in MotoGP was one reason. Also, although some people say Marc Marquez doesn’t know how to set up a bike, I think this is one of my strong points – trying to understand where the bike is in each moment and what it needs to go faster.”
Ducati engineers agree on this point. They say Marquez feels things other riders don’t, gives crystal-clear feedback and sets up his bike in a special way that allows him to do what he does. When Michelin became MotoGP’s official tyre supplier in 2016, he was the first rider to ask his engineers for a front-tyre temperature gauge on his dash, because he realised the tyre only worked in a narrow range.
One of the reasons Marquez is so good at attacking is because he rides in a special way that keeps his front tyre cooler, so while others struggle to overtake with their overheated front tyres, he can make the pass. How does he do this? Not sure, but it involves incredible feel and the ability to be gentle with the tyre where he can be without hurting his lap times.
Marquez believes Dall’Igna especially wants him for his input over the next two seasons, during which engineers will prepare new motorcycles for 2027, when MotoGP engine capacity will be reduced from 1000cc to 850cc, aerodynamic downforce trimmed and holeshot and ride-height devices banned. Huge changes.
“Having two champions in the same garage, with a lot of experience, is a good way to prepare for the new rules and give the correct direction with the new bike,” Marquez says.
Ironically, the new regulations ban or curtail most of Dall’Igna’s inventions, which have made MotoGP bikes less spectacular and the racing less exciting. Marquez looks forward to the changes, because he likes to be more involved in making the lap time, moving his body and modulating the throttle to reduce wheelies, wheelspin and so on.
“Now with the aero, especially going into corners, you need to do what bike wants, not what you want, because if you slide you kill the downforce and it becomes more difficult.
“If they removed the (downforce) aero now you would again see slides and saves. With the aero you can’t save a crash, because when you are leaning at more than 60 degrees the aero puts so much force into the tyres that when you lose grip it’s not a gradual loss.”
That’s why Marquez is less spectacular to watch on the Ducati than he was on Honda’s RC213V – which is more of an old-school MotoGP bike and therefore no longer competitive. Aboard the RC213V he was a sight to behold – sideways here, saving a crash there. Aboard the Ducati it looks easier. And less exciting.
“You have to ride the Ducati in a different way. The problem with the Honda was that if you were smoother you were three or four tenths slower, so you had to push much more, which meant more risk, more physical effort, all these things. When I first rode the Ducati they told me it’s a physical bike, but it’s not a physical bike compared to the Honda! The races I won in 2024 I rode super-smooth, because this is the way to ride the Ducati.”
LAST-CHANCE SALOON
Now that Marquez is winning again it’s easy to forget the nightmare that darkened his life and threatened his career from July 2020, when he broke his right upper arm at Jerez, to November 2023, when he first climbed aboard a Ducati at the post-season Valencia tests.
During that time he underwent four major surgeries to fix the injury – which has forced many riders, including World Superbike legend Carl Fogarty – to quit. The last operation was his last throw of the dice in the Last Chance Saloon. In June 2022 he travelled to the US, where specialist surgeons sawed the humerus fully in half, rotated it 30 degrees, then plated it back together. If it didn’t work, Marquez’s career was over.
And yet three months later he was back on the podium. But if he was recovering, Honda wasn’t.
Both Honda and Yamaha have so far failed to adapt to MotoGP’s new reality. The 2023 German GP was the first time since 1969 that a premier-class top 10 hadn’t featured a single Japanese bike. And that was the same weekend that Marquez suffered five crashes, trying to make the difference at a difficult track.
The writing was on the wall: it was time to move on to the bikes that were winning.
When Marquez won his first race with Ducati, at the 2024 Aragon GP, he was asked when he had first realised he could win again.
He replied, laughing, “During the Valencia test I realised this day will arrive… A lot of people talked about the look on my face when I took off my helmet after my first run on the Ducati. But it wasn’t a face of, ‘Ah, now I have the bike and I will win again’. No, it was a face of happiness.
“I was riding smooth, feeling the bike, feeling safe and the performance was already good in that first run.
“To be competitive on the Honda the risks are on another level. So at that moment I understood that I’d made the correct decision and sooner or later a victory would arrive.”
Like most racers, Marquez doesn’t like talking about injuries and pretends he’s fully fit, but occasionally you’ll see him riding a scooter and he’s holding the bad arm, grimacing in pain. So it’s still not right.
“It’s not a normal arm: four surgeries and before those, shoulder surgery, so I need to dedicate more time than normal to the arm and some days the muscles are more demanding.”
No surprise that Marquez’s three-and-a-bit years in that dark tunnel didn’t only change his arm. When you’re lying in hospital, staring at the ceiling, you tend to see your life from a different perspective.
So if Marquez appears different now – celebrating every victory and every podium like never before. It’s because he has changed.
“I don’t care about what people say about me, I don’t care about anything. I’m only here because I enjoy motorsport, so when people say, why is he celebrating a third place like that, I say, ‘Yeah? And?!’. For me, third is a good result.
“After all that happened in my life over those four years I was thinking to retire, so now I’m here again I will celebrate! Some races I will crash and the Monday will be another day and the next week we will have another race. I’m here just to enjoy my passion. Of course, if I can win, I will win, but I don’t care about anything.”
HEART AND SOUL
Although that’s not entirely true. For the first time in his life Marquez is in love, with Gemma Pinto, a Spanish model and influencer.
“It wasn’t like, I’m injured, so I’ll look for a girlfriend. When you’re winning at the racetrack it’s easy to have a happy life at home, but when you’re suffering at the racetrack it’s more difficult to have a happy life at home, so I was super-lucky that Gemma arrived a year-and-a-half ago. I feel super-good and she helps me to disconnect.”
Some people think that when racers fall in love they slow down – because they’ve got too much to lose if they get hurt – or worse. But Marquez doesn’t agree. “If you’re in love and you’re happy then you’re even more motivated,” he says.
Ducati’s 2025/2026 factory team line-up of Marquez and Bagnaia is the two best riders, on the best bikes, with the best engineers and in the best team, so it’s difficult to see anyone getting close to them. This scenario may remind older racing fans of the McLaren Formula 1 team of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost.
Senna and Prost didn’t get on, because they were so different: Prost won races like a professor, Senna won races with his heart and soul, which is another parallel to Ducati’s new line-up. Inevitably the McLaren partnership erupted into chaos, when they collided during the 1988 Japanese GP.
“I know that story,” says Marquez. “And of course there are some similarities.”
So who will win the red-on-red duel? “At the moment Pecco is a bit faster than me. Not only because of his bike, also because he knows the bike better.”
Will the Marquez versus Bagnaia duel be Senna versus Prost, or will it be Valentino Rossi versus Jorge Lorenzo? In either case, it’s going to be fascinating to watch.
Marc Marquez CV
Born: 17 February 1993
Lives: Madrid, Spain
2008 – 13th 125cc world championship
2009 – 8th 125cc world championship
2010 – 125cc world champion
2011 – 2nd Moto2 world championship
2012 – Moto2 world champion
2013 – MotoGP world champion
2014 – MotoGP world champion
2015 – 3rd MotoGP world championship
2016 – MotoGP world champion
2017 – MotoGP world champion
2018 – MotoGP world champion
2019 – MotoGP world champion
2021 – 7th MotoGP world championship
2022 – 13th MotoGP world championship
2023 – 14th MotoGP world championship
2024 – 3rd MotoGP world championship
