Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1531887
VOLUME 62 ISSUE 4 JANUARY 28, 2025 P121 Yet aside from the obvious, there is a secondary reason. To do with racing's oldest principle, that the first person you have to beat is your teammate. In other words, a strong teammate brings out something extra. And these are two of the strongest teammates imagin - able. When they are producing something extra, better stand well back from the barriers. Ducati already had the best bike, a situation unlikely to change anytime soon, and surely not for 2025. Now, they have seized a chance to spice up their efforts and extend their superiority even more. The rivalry between the pre- eminent pair cuts deeper than a simple fight for the checkered flag. There's national pride: Spain versus Italy. In a bike racing con - text, and never mind the wider issues, this means a lot. There's the obvious personal rivalry, which spiked in Portugal last year when each blamed the other for a mid-corner clash and mutually assured destruc- tion and has covertly simmered since. It's Marquez, the Merciless, re- turning superstar on the come- back trail after he and Honda went off on an injury-beset blind alley; versus Pecco Bagnaia, the outwardly polite and squeaky- clean standard-bearer of an Italian dynasty. It is that dynasty that really matters. It is led by national icon Valentino Rossi, who bolstered his own incomparable legacy with the VR46 Academy based at his Tavullia ranch: a pivotally important finishing school for the hand-picked best of Italian racing talent. Pecco has been a key member from the start and had already won one Moto2 title (riding for Valentino's own team) before his pair of MotoGP crowns. You might call him head boy. Or better still, teacher's pet. Rossi's own rivalry with Marquez, who played the major part in ending his racing domi - nance, is legendary, coming to a head at the notorious kicking attack in Malaysia in 2012, the resulting punishment for which cost Rossi the chance of a final championship. His dislike of the upstart remains. As recently as last year, he took the opportunity in a rare interview to prolong his public animosity. Teammates? The word "mate" is almost always uncom - fortable in this context, with a long and usually spiky history of unhappy pairings. Deadly ene- mies wearing the same uniform. Those with a sense of history will recall the classic Phil Read/ Bill Ivy rivalry of the 1960s. Both rode for dominant Yamaha (Honda having pulled out the year before), and Ivy would never forgive Read for breaking an agreement with the factory that Read should win 250 and Ivy 125. Phil won both. Read went on to similar in- team enmity with Agostini at MV Agusta, with the latter abandon - ing a career-long commitment to the dominant Italian fac- tory rather than share a pit for another year–his revenge was to beat MV with Yamaha's first 500-class title in 1975, kicking off the two-stroke era. More recently, there was similar hostility between Barry Sheene and pretty much ev - eryone who ever shared a pit with him. Likewise for Wayne Gardner, to an extent with Mick Doohan but more pungently with Eddie Lawson. Triple champion Wayne Rainey determinedly unsettled erstwhile Yamaha teammate John Kocinski. But nobody did it better than Rossi, who demanded a wall be built down the middle of the pit shared with Jorge Lorenzo at Yamaha in 2008. This was ostensible because they were using different tire suppliers, Michelin and Bridgestone. But when both rode with Bridges - tone the next year, the pit wall stayed. In an era of overt politeness, at least in public statements, Marquez and Bagnaia have been suitably restrained in their comments. "It will be interest - ing," said Bagnaia, in a typically muted response. "Interesting" doesn't cover even half of it. We should be in for an epic showdown. CN