Why Valentino Rossi’s Marc Marquez bitterness will only boost his arch rival

It’s hard to believe MotoGP is coming up for the 10th anniversary of arguably its most controversial episode. Valentino Rossi’s paranoia-fuelled accusations of sabotage levied at Marc Marquez ahead of the 2015 Malaysian Grand Prix sent off a shockwave that fundamentally changed the series.

The pair’s coming together in the grand prix at Sepang; the subsequent grid penalty for Rossi for the Valencia title-decider; the frenzied fan response; Rossi’s continued claims of a stolen title; irreversible bad blood between Rossi and Marquez from that moment on.

It really soured the ending of what was a fantastic season to that point and overshadowed a final world championship for Jorge Lorenzo.

Marquez and Rossi continued to have flashpoints in the next few years, though as one proved dominant and the other continued to fade in competitiveness, it somewhat softened. Fan response in Rossi strongholds towards Marquez remains hostile, not that this ever bothers the eight-time world champion.

Even after his retirement Rossi stands by the fact that a 10th world title was stolen from him, and it almost certainly underpinned the spiky comments he made about Ducati in a recent interview with L’Equipe.

“I have not finished understanding it,” he said of Ducati giving Marc Marquez a factory contract for 2025.

“Ducati had an interesting system in place, with a pyramid that allowed young riders to progress.

“That’s how Pecco [Bagnaia] was brought up, and both [Jorge] Martin and Marco Bezzecchi were also waiting for it. And suddenly Ducati decided to bring Marc in.

“It's normal that [the riders] feel betrayed. From one moment to the next they no longer count, so no wonder they consider the choice of Marquez a joke.” 

Marquez will benefit from Rossi interference

Nothing Rossi does is ever without calculation. He was a master of manipulating the narrative for his own gain during his racing career. It’s what made him a hit with the media and the fans, as the legend of Rossi only grew over the 21st Century and each fresh challenger fell to him eventually.

His L’Equipe comments were designed to illicit a response from Marquez, in the hope that his cage is rattled.

It’s well established that the Rossi camp was not happy when Ducati made a U-turn on its decision to give Jorge Martin the second factory team seat in favour Marquez for 2025. The bad blood between Rossi and Marquez made that inevitable.

But because of this, it makes the Rossi camp’s response seem like one borne out of a fear for the influence Marquez still holds on the championship.

Rossi hasn’t done badly out of this rider market shift. It cleared Pramac off the board, as the team signed with Yamaha for next year, leading to his VR46 squad getting Ducati’s factory support and a GP25 for Fabio Di Giannantonio’s 2025 assault.

While comments like this probably aren’t unexpected by Ducati, they will nevertheless cause some unease.

Bagnaia is adored by the Italian brand. He’s their most successful rider ever in MotoGP and is the deliverer of its long-awaited follow-up titles to 2007. Getting him locked down for another two years prior to the start of the 2024 season is further proof of Ducati’s love for Bagnaia.

He’s also proven to be very level-headed. When he and Marquez collided at the Portuguese GP, a calm Bagnaia told the media that it was nothing more than a racing incident. Marquez’s comment was quite the opposite, blaming Bagnaia for not backing out before it was too late. Much like Rossi, though, Marquez never says anything simply in the heat of the moment.

Bagnaia isn’t like to be easily drawn into a war of words in the press. But the influence of Rossi could lead to an uneasy partnership between Bagnaia and Marquez in 2025 if things do get tense between the pair on-track.

After all, we’re dealing with a rider who had a wall erected in the Yamaha garage in 2008 to ostensibly keep tyre secrets from going to Lorenzo’s side of the box.

Going head-to-head with Marquez on equal machinery is going to be the biggest test of Bagnaia’s MotoGP career. He doesn’t need any ageing bitterness from old rivalries clouding his judgement when things aren’t going his way in that fight.

All of this will only serve to benefit Marquez. He enjoys nothing more than winding up hostile fans by making them watch him stand on the podium in front of them.

Should Rossi wade further into any discourse that could arise between Marquez and Bagnaia, the former will use it as an opportunity to rub the Italian legend’s nose in it.

And what better way to do that than by equalling Rossi’s career tally of nine world titles aboard the bike he could never win on, and by besting his golden protege?

From a selfish media perspective, Rossi chiming in with his opinions can only be a good thing. And for MotoGP itself, it will only add another layer of intrigue to a 2025 title battle it hopes can snare a wider audience.

But the only people likely to suffer from it will be Rossi and Bagnaia…