Being Marc Marquez’s team-mate: ‘When you suffer and he wins, it kills you’
A former Marc Marquez team-mate has revealed how tough it is to partner him
Former Honda MotoGP rider Pol Espargaro has revealed how tough it is to be Marc Marquez’s team-mate, noting that “when you suffer and he wins, it kills you”.
Over his MotoGP career, Marc Marquez has carved himself out as a generational talent able to adapt to almost any motorcycle to be successful.
He won six world titles in seven years with Honda, with several of those championships coming on RC213V machinery that its other riders struggled on.
Pol Espargaro joined Honda for the 2021 campaign, but only managed two podiums in two tough seasons in which Marquez managed victories despite his physical fitness being below par following his serious arm injury in 2020.
At the end of his tenure with Honda, Espargaro admitted that the strain it placed on him spilt over into his personal life.
Espargaro understands Pecco Bagnaia’s 2025 difficulties
Espargaro’s time at Honda shares similarities with Pecco Bagnaia’s 2025 season, in which he struggled to be competitive on a Ducati that Marquez dominated on to win the title.
In an interview with Spain’s AS, the current KTM test rider commented: “When you suffer and he doesn’t, and he wins like he does, it kills you.
“Pecco is in a situation where he’s not comfortable; he’s not comfortable with the bike.
“And in these circumstances, when the bike starts to have defects, that’s where Marc brings out his true potential, his greatest potential.
“He’s able to adapt to problems in a way that others cannot.”
Marquez won 11 grands prix in 2025 and 14 sprints to wrap up his seventh premier class title with five rounds to spare.
It comes two years after he decided to leave Honda in order to pursue a year-old Ducati with Gresini in 2023, taking no salary, in order to rediscover his true form in the wake of his 2020 injury.
“He didn’t need to win a world championship with Ducati to prove he was the best,” Espargaro noted.
Marquez missed the final four rounds of the 2025 season after suffering a complicated shoulder injury in a collision at the Indonesian Grand Prix.
However, his recovery is progressing well, and he is expected to be able to take part in February’s first pre-season test at Sepang.
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