Davide Tardozzi says it is not Marc Marquez’s riding ability that impressed him the most during the 2025 MotoGP season.

The Ducati Lenovo Team manager spent much of his career fighting against Marquez, particularly between 2017 and 2019, when the Spaniard was at Repsol Honda and winning six titles in his first seven premier class seasons.

Marquez’s move to the factory Ducati team for 2025, however, saw the two working together for the first time, and a seventh MotoGP title resulted for Marquez – something Tardozzi confessed to being “proud” about.

“We are very proud because what Marc [Marquez] did is fantastic, winning the championship and having the ‘triple crown’ is something that makes us really proud of our mechanics, our engineers, and mainly our riders,” the Italian team boss said, speaking to MotoGP.com.

Tardozzi added that the thing that has impressed him the most about Marquez has not been his ability on the bike, rather his personality off the bike and in the garage.

“I always said during the season that the first thing that impressed me about Marc is the guy, the boy – still a boy for me – much more than the rider and the professional person,” he said.

“I think that the humanity, the way how he leads his group, how he works with his engineers and mechanics, is something that honestly I never saw before and I think that this is one of his best skills. 

“We have nothing to say about the professional rider because he was perfect in every moment, even when he made mistakes he was recovering and speaking in the proper way.

“So, no doubt that he makes us very happy about choosing him last year.”