Joan Mir has been around in MotoGP long enough – 2025 is his seventh season – and been successful enough as the 2020 world champion to ensure his words carry weight.
And the 27-year-old Honda rider had a point to make.
“He has the experience, the speed and the best bike,” the Spaniard began, adding: “I think the only one who can lose the title is him, because he has everything to win … I think he won’t have too many problems this year in taking the title if he doesn’t create them himself.”
The ‘he’ in question? Mir was referencing his former teammate Marc Marquez; he could easily have been talking about Marquez’s teammate at this year’s frontrunning Ducati factory team, Francesco Bagnaia.
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For if anyone knows what it’s like to squander a world title from a position of advantage, it’s Bagnaia after the Italian earned an unwanted slice of MotoGP history last season.
The subplot of the early part of the 2025 season was to see how Ducati’s new super-team of entrenched two-time champion Bagnaia and six-time premier-class kingpin Marquez would fare against one another on the same bike, the GP25 that’s the standout machine on the 22-bike grid.
While Marquez has been back to his imperious best for much of the early part of the season, his crash from the lead of the most recent race in Texas – and Bagnaia sweeping through to take victory – cemented Bagnaia’s best start to a MotoGP campaign in the past three years of the sport introducing a half-distance sprint race on the Saturday of Grands Prix weekends.
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The gap between the teammates – which has often looked disturbingly large for Bagnaia on track – sits at just 11 points after three rounds. Bagnaia hasn’t been anywhere near Marquez’s level so far in 2025, but he’s been metronomically consistent.
It’s a road map to a title that he knows can work, primarily because he still carries the pain of being on the other side of the equation.
BAGNAIA BEATEN, BUT STILL WINNING
MotoGP has become a Ducati benefit over the past 12 months – Bagnaia’s victory in Austin was the 20th straight Grand Prix success for the Italian brand – meaning the winner of the internal battle between Marquez and Bagnaia will most likely end up as world champion, promising as Alex Marquez’s consistent season start on a satellite 2024-spec Ducati has been for Gresini Racing over the opening three rounds.
It’s an internal battle Marc Marquez has emphatically won so far. Across sprint races and Grands Prix in Thailand, Argentina and Austin, he’s had Bagnaia’s measure when he’s stayed on the bike; the only 11 laps Bagnaia has led all season came after Marquez crashed out at COTA.
2025 so far: Marc Marquez vs. Bagnaia
Round 1: Thailand
Qualifying: Marquez 1st (1min 28.782secs), Bagnaia 3rd (0.173secs slower)
Sprint: Marquez 1st, Bagnaia 3rd (+3.423secs)
Grand Prix: Marquez 1st, Bagnaia 3rd (+2.398secs)
Round 2: Argentina
Qualifying: Marquez 1st (1min 36.917secs), Bagnaia 4th (+0.351secs slower)
Sprint: Marquez 1st, Bagnaia 3rd (+3.859secs)
Grand Prix: Marquez 1st, Bagnaia 4th (+5.536secs)
Round 3: Americas
Qualifying: Marquez 1st, Bagnaia 6th (+0.523secs slower)
Sprint: Marquez 1st, Bagnaia 3rd (+1.918secs)
Grand Prix: Marquez DNF (crashed on lap 9 of 19), Bagnaia 1st
As impressive as Marquez has been settling into a new team, it’s Bagnaia’s most prolific season start in MotoGP’s sprint race era that has him just 11 points behind his teammate, and 12 behind Alex Marquez atop the championship standings.
Francesco Bagnaia, first three rounds
(MotoGP sprint race era, 2023-25)
2023: 6 races, 3 wins, 3 podiums, 1 non-finish, 53 points (2nd)
2024: 6 races, 1 win, 1 podium, 1 non-finish, 50 points (5th)
2025: 6 races, 1 win, 5 podiums, 0 non-finishes, 75 points (3rd)
Almost exclusively slower than his teammate, yet as well placed as ever in the title chase? Both extremities are true for Bagnaia, who has already shown that he’s learning his lessons from the recent past, the memories of which still haunt him.
HARSH LESSONS FROM HARD TIMES
In 2024, Bagnaia had history at his mercy, and dropped the ball.
After mowing down Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo to win the 2022 championship and holding off fellow Ducati rider Jorge Martin the following season, the Italian had a chance to join modern-era luminaries as Valentino Rossi and Marc Marquez by winning a hat-trick of titles, something the likes of Casey Stoner or Jorge Lorenzo didn’t come close to managing.
Last year, as Bagnaia and Martin reprised their 2023 title fight, it was Bagnaia who blinked. From round six in Catalunya onwards, Bagnaia won nine Grands Prix to Martin’s one; across the season, he won 11 Grands Prix to Martin’s three, both riders winning seven sprint races.
Martin won the title by 10 points after Bagnaia’s eight DNFs for the season – most of which were from positions of advantage – repeatedly left the door ajar for Martin to push through it, the Spaniard sealing his maiden premier-class crown in Barcelona before taking the number one plate reserved for the world champion with him to Aprilia, who he’d signed with five months earlier.
PIT TALK PODCAST: In the latest episode of Pit Talk, hosts Renita Vermeulen and Matt Clayton review a wild Americas GP that saw Francesco Bagnaia win for the first time in 2025, Marc Marquez controversially triggering an aborted start, and Jack Miller’s strong ride to fifth at COTA.
Bagnaia became the first rider in MotoGP history to win more than 10 Grands Prix in a season and not secure the championship; in the past, Rossi (2002, 2005), Stoner (2007, 2011) and Marquez (2014, 2019) won at least 10 Grands Prix in the same season and took the title.
The championship defeat ate away at Bagnaia, who needed an off-season of soul-searching to find a silver lining from his wastefulness.
“In the end of last season, it’s still there [in my head],” Bagnaia said on the ‘GOFREE’ documentary series on YouTube.
“I think it will take me years to digest that.
“What I tried to do over the winter was to analyse why I didn’t manage to win the title even though I won more races than anyone else. I couldn’t manage to bring home the title and that was difficult to accept, but surely important for my career.
“When you lose in this situation, either you sink or your try to learn.”
It’s a lesson Marquez knows well from his own experience.
A decade ago, fresh off winning the title in each of his first two seasons in 2013 and 2014, Marquez won more Grands Prix in 2015 (five) than any rider besides Lorenzo (seven), but was 88 points away from a three-peat at the end of a season where he had six non-finishes, five more than the other three riders in the top four of the standings (Lorenzo, Rossi and Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa) combined.
The contentious Malaysian Grand Prix of that year – and his controversial, title-defining clash with Rossi that still simmers today – was the headline of a season where Marquez’s profligacy saw him evolve and bounce back to win the championship for the next four seasons, his 2019 campaign (12 wins and 18 podiums in 19 races) the most dominant in the sport’s history.
MILLER: BAGNAIA WILL COME BACK SWINGING
The 2025 season may yet develop into one where only Marquez can win – or lose – the title, but Australia’s Jack Miller feels that Bagnaia’s role in shaping the narrative of what’s to come shouldn’t be underestimated.
Miller – a MotoGP rookie when Marquez threw away the 2015 title, and Bagnaia’s teammate for four seasons across the Pramac Ducati and Ducati factory team outfits from 2019-22 – is uniquely placed to look at the bigger picture with both riders, and told the ‘Gypsy Tales’ podcast that he feels Marquez has his swagger back after his career was derailed by multiple injuries and arm surgeries from 2020.
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“When he got off the plane to Thailand – we got on the charter, it’s the whole paddock – you saw the aura,” Miller said of Marquez.
“I’ve seen it before, it’s like deja vu – he’s reincarnated. It’s cool to see, I’m happy for him. Nobody but him knows what he’s been through, I bet he’s been put through the wringer.
“Say what you want about him, but he’s put in the work … look at the shape of him this year. He’s changed his body, he’s ready to go.”
But when asked if he felt Marquez would dominate this year’s title race, Miller said Bagnaia – who he feels is still “absolutely” underrated despite his 30 premier-class wins and two titles – won’t roll over.
“‘Pecco’ [Bagnaia] is a f***ing determined bloke who will come back swinging,” he said.
“I know the ability he has. He’s not an in-your-face type of guy, but the ability he has on a motorcycle is phenomenal. He does very subtle things that you don’t see … but you do see. Only someone that knows what they’re doing on a bike … the way he [prepares] himself for a corner, his whole riding style, the way he goes about it is very different to how I go about it, or Marc goes about it.
“Some of the things he can do on a bike … f**k, I wish I could. The way he turns a bike without using the lean angle to eliminate the risk and the stress on the tyre, while getting the same benefit – he’s a phenomenal rider. He is friendly with his body, he doesn’t force it. I don’t know how he does it, but it looks f**king good.
“Marc coming back on fire, I think [Bagnaia will] react to it. When ‘Pecco’ is backed up against the wall, he does some of his best work.”
It might not be the most exciting way to win a world title, but it might be Bagnaia’s best way. Iron out the mistakes, repeatedly hit the target, and wait for your rival to fluff his lines.
Bagnaia knows from personal experience – recent, painful experience – that the fastest rider isn’t always the one left saluting as world champion at the end of a season.
And he’ll be hoping that Mir’s proclamation – at least part of it – comes to fruition.