Ducati, Poncharal: "Marc Marquez shocked Pecco Bagnaia. So did Valentino Rossi"

Tech3 team boss Herve Poncharal in an interview with As analyzed Pecco Bagnaia’s meltdown in the 2025 World Championship. The fight for the title was supposed to be a two-man challenge between Ducati riders Marc Marquez and Bagnaia, but instead the Catalan centaur dominated the championship from start to finish, leaving the crumbs to his teammate who instead collapsed, even finishing fifth in the overall standings. Poncharal spoke of a real psychological collapse on the part of the two-time MotoGP world champion.

“When you are struggling, when sometimes you have doubts and then you see your teammate winning, taking the pole position and being the fastest in every session is difficult”, explained the’former rider. “Having a teammate like Marc Marquez doing what he does with the bike has definitely been a shock”, Poncharal continued.”To no longer be number one, to no longer be the one who always wins, the one on whom the House places all its hopes, has completely changed the game”.

The Tech3 team boss gave the example of Valentino Rossi, who in his golden years at Yamaha destroyed all his teammates: “When I was at Yamaha, there were four M1s. Valentino Rossi was winning every race, every championship, and the other three riders were completely lost, they didn&#8217t know what to do. And they had the same bike, I can assure you. When we showed Valentino’s data to the others, they said, ‘I can’t do it.’ And I think the same thing happened to the other Hondas when Marc was there”.

Poncharal’s opinion is similar to that of Paolo Simoncelli, who explained in an interview with Corriere della Sera that Bagnaia did not expect a Marc Marquez like that: “Pecco was not prepared for such a strong teammate. Bagnaia comes from Valentino Rossi’s group and by dint of listening to all the things they say in that group he underestimated Marquez, which instead sent him into crisis”.

“The year before he lost the World Championship by winning 11 races. He thought, ‘I will just need to fall less’. But Marc on the track is a beast and it sent him into a crisis. I always liked him, he runs and thinks like my son, never gives up and always tries. If Marc had not died, we would have had a blast. You know what sportellate”.