Francesco Bagnaia: Marc Marquez? “I’ll be the gentleman”
“I will always be like this and I will not change”
Francesco Bagnaia, who stuck to his principles and refused to engage in ‘dirty’ go-slow tactics against MotoGP title rival Jorge Martin last season, has made clear he will remain ‘a gentleman’ alongside Marc Marquez in 2025.
2022 and 2023 champion Bagnaia came up just ten points short of Pramac’s Martin last season.
A recent behind-the-scenes documentary showed Ducati team manager Davide Tardozzi urging Bagnaia to be less of a gentleman on track.
That prompted the following question from MotoGP.com’s Jack Appleyard, during an interview with Bagnaia at today’s Ducati team launch:
“Now opposite you in the box [is] Marc, maybe one of the most ungentlemanly riders on the grid - Marc will win at all costs. Are we going to see less of a gentleman from Pecco Bagnaia this year?”
Bagnaia replied: “I’ll let him be the ‘ungentleman’. I’ll be the gentleman. I will always be like this and I will not change anytime.”
Nevertheless, on the two occasions where the future team-mates clashed last season, at Portimao and Jerez, the Italian was arguably the aggressor...
Meanwhile, having won over half of last year’s 20 grands prix, the only change Bagnaia intends to make is to learn from the mistakes that contributed to his eight DNFs.
“It's difficult to be sad about what we did last year, honestly,” Bagnaia insisted. “[But] finishing second in the championship was a bit of a shame because we won more than the double [the races] of all the other riders.
“So absolutely it was a fantastic season. I have just to improve from my mistakes, [and] we have just to improve on some situations where we did some mistakes as a team last year.”
With a combined total of eight premier-class crowns, the Marquez-Bagnaia line-up is MotoGP’s strongest since Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo at Yamaha in 2016.
“It’s super exciting. It's absolutely the strongest team in the grid, so I think we can take an advantage from it and we try to learn from some things about Marc,” Bagnaia said.
“I think he will adapt super good to the team and the first part during the test we will work together trying to improve the bike and trying to arrive to the first race ready. And then what will happen, will happen.”
Bagnaia then seemed to back-up the words of Luca Marini, who recently told Crash.net that Bagnaia and Marquez could ‘fight for victory in every race’ this season.
“I'm quite sure and confident that our potential could be [evenly] matched, every race in the first and second position. And the bike will allow us to do it,” Bagnaia said.
“And [then] who will win, will win. But the potential is there.”
