Marc Marquez: “Somebody will beat me with the same bike” in future

It hasn’t happened before in Marc Marquez’s career, and won’t happen in 2025, but the Spaniard insists he will eventually be beaten by a MotoGP team-mate over a full, injury free campaign.

Since his 2013 premier-class debut, Marquez has got the better of Dani Pedrosa, Jorge Lorenzo, Pol Espargaro and Joan Mir at Honda.

While his 2020 season alongside brother Alex was erased by injury, Marc reigned supreme when they were team-mates at Gresini Ducati last season.

This year saw Marquez face perhaps his toughest team-mate challenge since Pedrosa, moving alongside MotoGP’s only other current multiple champion, Francesco Bagnaia, at the factory Ducati team.

The pair sparred in several races last season, setting the scene, but it’s been a Marc Marquez whitewash so far in 2025.

While Bagnaia has struggled with braking and corner entry problems on the GP25, Marquez has been untouchable, winning the last 14 races to build a commanding 175-point title lead.

Bagnaia’s only victory this season came after Marc crashed from the lead at COTA. Likewise, Marquez's only defeat by Bagnaia in a race they both finished was Jerez, when Marc remounted from an early fall.

The biggest surprise has been the size of the gap between Marquez and Bagnaia, who has not finished on the podium during the past three rounds, leaving him 227 points from Marc and 52 points behind Alex Marquez.

“Somebody will beat me with the same bike”

Quizzed on the one-sided team-mate contest during the Balaton Park weekend, Marquez admitted:

“I cannot answer honestly [how it feels to be on the other side] because from when I started until today, I always beat my team-mates. So I don't know the experience.

“I will feel this experience, sure - in the future I will feel this experience because it's a natural process. 

"Somebody will arrive and beat me with the same bike.

“All I can say is that I remember when I arrived in MotoGP, I did some mistakes some Sundays, because Pedrosa was in front and I was trying to catch him.

“Your team-mate always is an extra pressure, but at the same time, an extra motivation.”

Marquez’s situation mirrors that of Valentino Rossi, who defeated every MotoGP team-mate when fully fit from 2000 to 2012. However, Jorge Lorenzo turned the tables after Rossi’s Yamaha return.

Marquez, however, believes Bagnaia is closer than the results suggest:

“I think Pecco is smart enough and has enough experience to absorb all these things,” Marquez said of Bagnaia facing a stronger team-mate for the first time since joining the factory team in 2021.

“He is a two-time world champion already. So I think it's not his main problem.

“In the end we are in MotoGP and in MotoGP bikes when you are missing the confidence you lose 0.030s-0.040s on each brake point and in the end that’s two tenths a lap.

“So he's in a moment to regain his confidence, but at the same time, as we saw in Austria, he was the fastest there on Friday.

“Pecco is Pecco and will arrive soon or later.”

While Bagnaia is still missing the handling of last year’s GP24, and indicated it’s not possible to step back to that machine, Marquez once again insisted:

“Factory riders, if we want the GP24, from what I understand from my technicians, we can have it. We are riding with a similar spec.”