Marc Marquez insists “we need Pecco back” in MotoGP 2026

A top-form Francesco Bagnaia will be important for Ducati’s future, insists Marc Marquez.

Marquez himself cruised to the 2025 championship, his dominance highlighted by his 78-point margin at the end of the season despite missing the last five races through injury.

But the Desmosedici GP25 was a bike which was rarely providing consistent performance for the Spaniard's Ducati Lenovo teammate Bagnaia, whose trend for the season was summed up by his non-scoring weekends either side of his Sprint-GP double win in Japan.

It has been suggested this year that Bagnaia’s sensitivity to changes as a rider has been a part of his struggles to adapt to a 2025 Desmosedici that never offered him the same front feeling as the 2024 version he won 11 grands prix on. 

But Marquez says that it’s this sensitivity that will continue to make Bagnaia an important part of Ducati’s MotoGP development going forwards.

“We need Pecco [Francesco Bagnaia] that comes back on his level because he’s super-sensitive on the bike and it will help a lot for the future,” Marc Marquez told MotoGP.com.

“For me, the speed of Pecco is there, the speed is there, he is showing in some practices, in some races. 

“I mean, in Motegi GP, what he did? He took 37 points, and I pushed and I was not able to catch him. 

“Sometimes, only two months are enough to reset everything, so December and January will be the best time for Pecco to reset everything and restart in Malaysia test.”

2026 rivals “growing a lot”

At the same time as two of Ducati’s three factory riders struggled in 2025, there was clear progress from multiple rivals: Aprilia won three of the last four races; KTM’s Pedro Acosta inserted himself into the majority of podium battles in the second half of the season; and Honda progressed from struggling to be in the top-10 to scoring two podiums during the four Asian races towards the end of the season.

Marquez, though, reaffirmed his belief in Ducati going forwards.

“Aprilia is growing a lot, KTM  is coming better and better, Honda made a massive step from the first part of the season until now,” he said.

“We are in MotoGP, it’s racing.

“At the end, if I’m in Ducati, I’m in the best team and I have the best bike.”

At least part of Marquez’s belief in Ducati is derived from his faith in Ducati Corse General Manager Gigi Dall’Igna, who the Spaniard says has the perfect “mentality” to lead a MotoGP team.

“I’m very thankful to the big boss, Gigi [Dall’Igna] and Ducati, because in the end it’s a team that gave me the opportunity to show my talent,” he said.

“They showed me that they believe in me and I know that they take a very important and difficult decision for them that moved me to the factory team. 

“Then, with Gigi we are working together, but his mentality is the best one to be the boss of a team because he organises everything in the correct way, he controls the situations in the correct way. 

“I was in a race track and I said ‘I messed up in this turn,’ he takes me and he said ‘You never mess up, you do better or worse, never mess up.’ That sentence helps me a lot. 

“We are riders but we are humans and of course in some race tracks we have some doubts, and the pressure is there: you are in a factory team, you are in Ducati Lenovo, you need to fight for the championship.”