{"id":351656,"date":"2025-12-16T12:15:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T12:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/351656\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T12:15:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T12:15:07","slug":"being-marc-marquezs-team-mate-when-you-suffer-and-he-wins-it-kills-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/351656\/","title":{"rendered":"Being Marc Marquez\u2019s team-mate: \u2018When you suffer and he wins, it kills you\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former Honda MotoGP rider Pol Espargaro has revealed how tough it is to be Marc Marquez\u2019s team-mate, noting that \u201cwhen you suffer and he wins, it kills you\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Over his MotoGP career, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/racer\/1654\/marc-marquez\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Marc Marquez<\/a> has carved himself out as a generational talent able to adapt to almost any motorcycle to be successful.<\/p>\n<p>He won six world titles in seven years with Honda, with several of those championships coming on RC213V machinery that its other riders struggled on.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/racer\/1832\/pol-espargaro\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pol Espargaro<\/a> joined Honda for the 2021 campaign, but only managed two podiums in two tough seasons in which Marquez managed victories despite his physical fitness being below par following his serious arm injury in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>At the end of his tenure with Honda, Espargaro admitted that the strain it placed on him spilt over into his personal life.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>Espargaro understands Pecco Bagnaia\u2019s 2025 difficulties<\/p>\n<p>Espargaro\u2019s time at Honda shares similarities with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/racer\/911999\/francesco-bagnaia\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pecco Bagnaia<\/a>\u2019s 2025 season, in which he struggled to be competitive on a Ducati that Marquez dominated on to win the title.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with Spain\u2019s AS, the current KTM test rider commented: \u201cWhen you suffer and he doesn\u2019t, and he wins like he does, it kills you.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPecco is in a situation where he\u2019s not comfortable; he\u2019s not comfortable with the bike.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd in these circumstances, when the bike starts to have defects, that\u2019s where Marc brings out his true potential, his greatest potential.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s able to adapt to problems in a way that others cannot.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>Marquez won 11 grands prix in 2025 and 14 sprints to wrap up his seventh premier class title with five rounds to spare.<\/p>\n<p>It comes two years after he decided to leave Honda in order to pursue a year-old Ducati with Gresini in 2023, taking no salary, in order to rediscover his true form in the wake of his 2020 injury.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe didn\u2019t need to win a world championship with Ducati to prove he was the best,\u201d Espargaro noted.<\/p>\n<p>Marquez missed the final four rounds of the 2025 season after suffering a complicated shoulder injury in a collision at the Indonesian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n<p>However, his recovery is progressing well, and he is expected to be able to take part in February\u2019s first pre-season test at Sepang.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Honda MotoGP rider Pol Espargaro has revealed how tough it is to be Marc Marquez\u2019s team-mate, noting&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,4280,806,805,803,804,6398,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-351656","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-marc-marquez","11":"tag-motor","12":"tag-motor-sports","13":"tag-motosport","14":"tag-motosports","15":"tag-pol-espargaro","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}