Pecco Bagnaia has been the factory Ducati team's lead MotoGP title hope since he first stepped onto its red bikes. He's a two-time champion who came pretty close to another two titles.
Yet so far in 2025 he's looked firmly in the shadow of new team-mate Marc Marquez.
Maybe that shouldn't be a surprise given Marquez's own status as a six-time champion and greatest of all time contender.
That's a regular line of argument on The Race MotoGP Podcast: that Bagnaia is a very good rider but not a great like Marquez, so this was obviously going to be the outcome and even Bagnaia himself probably knew it.
But surely Bagnaia was expected to put up more of a fight than this? Is this purely down to the calendar starting with some of his weaker tracks?
Or do we need to reassess what we used to think about Bagnaia now we've seen him up against Marquez in the same team?
Here are some of our team's thoughts:
No one beats Marquez on the same bike
Val Khorounzhiy
The list of riders who have finished ahead of Marquez in a MotoGP championship season while on the same spec of bike is as follows: Taka Nakagami, Alex Marquez, Cal Crutchlow, Stefan Bradl.
You may have immediately figured out that what they all have in common is they did it in 2020, when Marc was out after one race that he didn't even finish.
In other words, this is not a rider you beat over a season when he's in your camp. Only Dani Pedrosa in Marquez's rookie season came at all close. Then Pedrosa was effectively ushered into retirement by Marquez (while later proving on the KTM that he still had some pace), which then also happened, indirectly, to his replacement Jorge Lorenzo.
Marquez may be a bit limited since his 2020 injury, but he's not that limited. We saw it last year already on a clearly lacking Ducati GP23. This is still the arguable greatest of all time operating somewhere around that level.
So forgive me if I'm not too alarmed by a slightly out-of-sorts Bagnaia finishing 2.4s behind in Thailand and 5.5s behind in Argentina, at two tracks where Marquez clearly has something extra relative to him.
Firstly, this is a discussion to be really had around Lusail - Jerez - Silverstone - Mugello - Assen time. But if it holds like this, Bagnaia being just a tick behind Marquez is the par for the course outcome coming into 2025.
It doesn't make him a fraud. It just makes him not Marquez.
It's the gap to the other Marquez that alarms me
Josh Suttill
The 2025 season has so far given us confirmation of something we already knew: Bagnaia is merely a very good MotoGP rider, not an all-time great one.
Losing in a title fight to a satellite rider last year already told us that, so too the wobbles en route to his MotoGP titles despite a clear machinery advantage. I'd argue he wasn't the #1 rider in any of those three years.
There's no shame in that. Bagnaia has two premier class titles that the majority of MotoGP riders will never get anywhere near. It didn't matter that Nicky Hayden and Joan Mir probably aren't all-time greats either, they'll always be MotoGP champions.
Marc Marquez has been - and is - simply on a different level. Bagnaia was never going to go toe-to-toe with Marquez without some bizarre adaptation problem or injury woe for Marquez that just hasn't (so far) transpired.
The biggest surprise is his competitiveness relative to the other Marquez. Should that continue and Bagnaia finds himself being beaten to the best of the rest slot or run very close to it by Alex Marquez or someone else, that will be a bigger blow to Bagnaia's reputation (and maybe even his Ducati future) than his performance versus Marc.
He's better than this but the clock is ticking
Oliver Card
It's no great shock that Marquez has come in and dominated at the factory team, but seeing a pensive Pecco not quite click into his usual benchmark of form with Ducati is definitely one of the more surprising elements to the 2025 season.
Externally at least, he doesn't project being rattled by Marquez's presence and he sensibly came into this season under no illusion that it would be a walk in the park against one of the most successful riders of all time. His frustration instead appears more internal as his biggest battle currently is with his own bike rather than his team-mate.
Being overshadowed at the first two rounds doesn't take anything away from the two titles he earned with blistering pace, a smooth and intuitive riding style and aggression when required.
Titles are not lost in the first 10% of the season; the efforts and harmony required to bring together a successful title campaign are a year-long monumental slog, and Bagnaia has done it twice.
Even in the context of injury woes and performance deficits from fellow title-winning competitors, he still rose to the top with Ducati and deserves respect for his achievements.
Once he unlocks the elusive feel that he so desires this year, then he can get his campaign back on track and we will see him on better form with a clearer head.
However, the professorial Bagnaia needs to think his way out of this sooner rather than later, because the pressure from a hungry pack of improving riders could risk him getting swallowed into the jungle.
Bagnaia should've benefitted from familiarity
Jack Benyon
I wrote in the off-season that Jorge Martin's move to Aprilia meant we were being robbed of the two best riders - him and Marquez - going toe-to-toe in 2025.
That view has only been supported by what we've seen so far, but even I am cautious of judging this battle after just two events.
It doesn't look good for Bagnaia, especially as really, given his knowledge of the 2024 bike Ducati is essentially now using and Marquez coming to it from the 2023-spec machine at Gresini, it should have been Bagnaia having this early-season bounce while Marquez got to grips with the new ride and Bagnaia capitalised on familiarity. Being outshone by not one but two Marquezes is just salt in the wound.
It looks as if my fear that Bagnaia is just a very good rider - not a great one - will be proven this year. But let's give it until midway through the season before we start thinking it's 2014 again...
This is more about the Marquez magic returning
Glenn Freeman
Over the winter I thought Marquez's arrival in factory Ducati colours would set Bagnaia up to show that even if he wasn't an all-time great, he was very, very good.
I even had a nagging feeling that he might start the year the stronger of the two, making the most of his position as the incumbent rider.
What's happened so far this year tells us more about Marquez than it does Bagnaia. It confirms that the magic from before the almost career-ending nightmare that started in 2020 is still very much there. A physically repaired, 32-year-old Marquez remains one of the greatest to ever do this.
From that perspective, there's no shame in Bagnaia not being quite at that level. And it doesn't really diminish his previous achievements, because nobody was really suggesting he was at the 'alien' level when he won his titles. He was just the guy doing the best job on the best bike. And that's fine.
However, what is a concern is that he's fallen behind the leading satellite bikes. If he was finishing a few seconds behind his team-mate and finishing second in the races, I'd shrug and move on.
Presumably it's something Bagnaia will get on top of as he gets more comfortable with the bike, and perhaps the factory team's advantage over the satellite runners grows as it often does during a season. But right now his standing in my eyes is under greater threat from how he performs versus everyone else, rather than how he performs against Marquez.
We're writing Bagnaia off too soon
Matt Beer
Don't judge me for my inconsistent opinions but, having declared last week that Alex Marquez was definitely a title contender on the evidence of 2025's tests and four races so far, I'm now declaring that we can't dismiss Bagnaia as a lesser rider than we thought just on the basis of 2025's tests and four races so far.
I don't buy the argument that Bagnaia was always good not great and was inevitably going to be deposed by Marquez in the same garage. Yes he's had troughs and wobbles but he made a pair of proven race winners in previous team-mates Jack Miller and Enea Bastianini look very ordinary/turned them into his number twos, and his win record, raw speed and racecraft are outstanding.
No he's not a Marquez, no one except prime Valentino Rossi ever has been in the MotoGP era (not even Casey Stoner or Jorge Lorenzo, though they were close). But neither can this be full-spec mid-2010s Marquez given where he now is in his career. I totally disagree that you can look at Bagnaia's 2021-24 pace and results and go 'yeah he'll be blown away by Marquez on the same bike'.
What we've seen from Bagnaia so far is not his actual level. He's underperforming by his own standards. Whether he can actually go head to head in an even fight with Marquez or not, he can get closer than this and it's disappointing that he hasn't yet. Unfavourable circuits isn't really enough of an excuse when you're not just trailing Marc Marquez but also his brother on an older bike and you're actually only just beating the rest to step three on the podium.
Bagnaia has more in him than this. He just needs to access it again. The fact he can't do it consistently enough does put him a step below Marquez in the overall MotoGP pantheon. But we're talking the difference between great and legend here, not between good and great.
He's already facing the kind of points deficit that you just don't want to hand to Marquez, especially with Austin imminent, so the title fight is probably over.
But Bagnaia will fight Marquez this season, I'm certain of it.
