‘It’s untrue that Márquez rides very fast but doesn’t understand anything’

This is especially true if things are going wrong. He says, ‘Okay, I need to understand what happened, then think about the next thing.’ He always wants to stay positive, because if you continue thinking about what isn’t working you can become frustrated and negative. He says it’s important to understand what’s wrong, then learn, continue and stay positive.

I think in general any sportsperson that stay at the very top of their sport it’s because they stay focused on their target 365 days a year.

When did you find out you’d be working with him?

They signed him at Mugello [June 2024] and maybe one week later Ducati told me I would be working with him in 2025. This made me really happy because it told me that Ducati value me.

The next time we saw each other was at the next race [Assen]. We said, ‘Ciao, Ciao,’ and I said we have to speak about next year, so we had some meetings at some of the last races.

At Ducati we can look at the data of all the Ducati riders, so I had already looked at his data a lot, but after Mugello I started taking his data even more into consideration.

What do you see in the data that impresses you?

The way he manages the gas, the brake and everything, so that he is very consistent, lap after lap. Sometimes he rides in a different way [according to what the bike and tyres need at different stages of a race] but he’s still very constant lap by lap.

He is very fast because he can manage the details and put the tyres at 100% of their potential. This is very impressive because motorbikes aren’t like cars – to ride at 100% means a crash is always there.

Other Ducati riders say Marc can push and load the front tyre more, especially in left-handers.

It’s clear that what he’s doing is difficult for another rider to replicate and his speed in left corners is very impressive. A rider like Pecco [Bagnaia] can understand what Marc is doing on the bike but to do the same means changing how they ride and because they ride intuitively this means they would have to change everything. Maybe if you start at 14 years old you can learn…

Like I’ve said many times, the difference between normal people and these guys is that what they are doing is like what we can do with slow-mo on the TV. We can watch something in slow-mo and everything is much slower, so we can understand what’s happening, but we are not able to manage this at their speed.

Riders often say to me things like, ‘Okay, at this moment, in that part of the corner, I am doing this, or that.’ But this is maybe one tenth of a second! So they are able to understand something and react in such a short time that’s impossible for us to understand

Marc makes the difference in corner entry – can you explain how he does this?

With electronics now the difference they can make is not in corner exit, because you can more or less open the throttle and the electronics do most of the job, so the difference is in what they can do in braking and entry.

In entry, Marc is able to enter fast and flick the bike very quick. Other riders do this but slower. Look at the way he overtakes – he’s able to go, whack, like that. [Rigamonti uses his hands to mimic Marc throwing the motorcycle on its side.] I remember Enea saying to me last year, ‘It’s impossible to overtake with these MotoGP bikes’, so I said, ‘Look at Márquez.’ So it’s also an attitude, plus it’s how you ride and much risk you want to take, because everything is related. But Marc’s good point is how he enters corners.

Marc has always liked his team to be like a gang, a family, joking around. How do you think this helps him?

I think this is related to his mentality, to not think about negative things that have happened, but to be positive and always think about what comes next. Also, staying all together and joking helps to remove stress, so I think this is part of his character.

When he eats dinner at the end of each day he always eats with his crew and it gets very noisy – laughing, joking…

There are some riders that have a lot of people around them outside the team at races – manager, girlfriend, other friends. The only person at races with Marc, apart from sometimes his girlfriend, is his assistant José [Luis Martinez], so for that reason it’s easier for him to stay with the team. But I think it’s also his character, to joke around and not always be serious. Okay, when we speak about our job we are serious, but during other parts of the day we can smile and joke.

MotoGP bikes are quite tricky now, with the rear tyre pushing the front tyre and causing crashes. Can you explain this phenomenon?

For example, in Jerez [where Márquez crashed out on the third lap], Marc tried to overtake Pecco, then after two laps he decided to wait, stay behind and manage the first part of the race.

In this situation you’re not pushing so much but the speed is basically the same, you’re not entering corners ten ‘kays’ slower. That’s why we see many crashes when a rider says, ‘Okay, now I will manage the gap,’ and then they crash. Why? Because if you don’t keep loading the front tyre, the rear tyre will push the front and you will crash.

Does his right-arm injury still cause him problems?

He says the arm isn’t like it was in the past, so he has less strength. Especially he can’t ride in the perfect position because then he has less power.

In other words, he’s doing something remarkable.

This is the big positive about this year, because he’s come back and again he’s making the difference even though he had such a big injury. I don’t know if any sportsperson has come back from an injury to reach the same level as before. This is the big thing about this year.

Did you work with Stoner when he was at Ducati from 2007 to 2010?

First I was in the development team, so I would go to races maybe three or four times per year, so those were the first times I met Casey. From 2009 I worked full-time at the races, so I was there for his last two years at Ducati.

How would you compare Casey and Marc as stand-out riders – riders that have the talent to ride around problems?

Both are able to take the tyres to 100% of their potential in all conditions. I remember one race at Sepang; it was dry all weekend, then the race was wet. Casey was 2.5 seconds faster than the other riders for the first five or six laps, then the others arrived at that pace.

The talent of Casey and Marc is to able to arrive at the limit of the tyres very quickly. Like I said, they are able to manage every situation quicker. Because when you are at the limit, the front is closing [tucking] at every corner. People like us would go – woah! – and immediately slow down. They are able to ride in this way and the more you are able to ride at the limit the faster you are.