Paolo Simoncelli analyzes why Bagnaia didn’t stand a chance against Marquez in the 2025 MotoGP season—and Rossi’s environment doesn’t come out looking good in the process.
Francesco Bagnaia’s 2025 MotoGP season turned out to be one of the most difficult of his career. After two world championship titles and a strong but ultimately unsuccessful title chase in 2024, the Ducati rider suddenly found himself in a supporting role.
While Bagnaia struggled with the new GP25 and inconsistent performances, his new teammate Marc Marquez dominated the championship almost at will.
For Paolo Simoncelli, team boss of the SIC58 team in the Moto3 class and father of the late Marco Simoncelli, this development came as no surprise. For him, Marquez had been the benchmark even before the start of the season.
Simoncelli blames Bagnaia’s entourage
“I knew he was the strongest. I always liked him. He rides and thinks like my son, he never gives up and always tries again. If Marco hadn’t died, we would have had a lot of fun. You know how these battles are in sport,” he said in an interview with Corriere della Sera.
While Marquez won race after race last season, Bagnaia increasingly found himself in a mental downward spiral. Simoncelli remains cautious about whether the Italian will be able to fight back this year.
“Let’s hope he’s got his thoughts in order,” said the team boss. When asked what exactly he meant by that, Simoncelli made himself clear.
In his view, Bagnaia was not sufficiently prepared for internal competition.
“He wasn’t prepared for such a strong teammate. Pecco comes from Valentino’s group, and by listening to everything that was said in that group, he underestimated Marquez,” he said, referring to Bagnaia’s long-standing involvement in Valentino Rossi’s rider academy.
Simoncelli: “Marc is a beast on the track”
He has been at loggerheads with Marquez since the 2015 season. The VR46 group is said to have been correspondingly annoyed when it became clear that Marquez would be promoted to the Ducati factory team in 2025 and become Bagnaia’s teammate.
According to Simoncelli, the 2024 season also contributed to this misjudgment: “The year before, Pecco lost the world championship despite winning eleven races. He thought, ‘I just need to crash less.’ But Marc is a beast on the track, and that threw him into a crisis.”
In the end, the Italian finished the season in fifth place overall, a whopping 257 points behind world champion Marquez. It was his worst performance to date in the Ducati factory team, which even led to premature rumors of a split. However, both sides emphasized that they continued to trust each other.
