A brief overview on teammates in 2023

As some teams have started presenting their new lineups for the 2024 season, I thought, what better time to compare some of the riders to their teammates last season to provide a bit of insight on how it actually went down for both of them during the 2023 campaign.

So, as of today, January 25th, we’ve had Gresini, Ducati Lenovo and VR46 team presentations, so the teammates pairings I have done research for are:

• Alex Marquez and Fabio Di Giannantonio (one Gresini and one VR46)
• Marc Marquez and Joan Mir (one Gresini and one Repsol Honda)
• Marco Bezzechi and Luca Marini (one VR46 and one Repsol Honda)
• Pecco Bagnaia and Enea Bastianini (both Ducati Lenovo)

The method used for all of these comparisons will be the same: finding the difference between both of them in race pace, only counting races where both of them have completed at least 5 laps. This means that, for example, in the graph comparing the Repsol Honda riders there will be a lot of gaps due to their amount of crashes and injuries.

Alex Marquez vs Fabio Di Giannantonio

As it can be seen in the graph, up until the race in San Marino, Di Giannantonio had better race pace only in the sprint race in Le Mans. This means that Di Giannantonio was slower than Alex in 17 out of the first 18 that both riders took part in (only counting races where both of them did more than 5 laps).

Certainly, the graph makes it evident that in the last two Grand Prix races, DiGia demonstrated greater speed than Alex (although the biggest difference was only 0.37% faster than Alex), securing even a win in the main race in Qatar and a brilliant second place at the season finale in Valencia, thus getting one more feature race win than his teammate. But this strong end to the season can’t fix everything that has been Di Giannantonio before in MotoGP, specially in 2023, his second season in the category, where in average he was almost 0.7% slower than his teammate during all the season.

Marc Marquez vs Joan Mir

Now for the new rider in the Gresini Team this season, the older of the Marquez brothers. Comparing him to his teammate in 2023 is difficult because the Honda being such a horrible and difficult bike meant that all 4 riders of the manufacturer had many injuries and crashes. Nevertheless, in the second part of the season both of the Repsol Honda riders were somewhat healthy and still Joan Mir, a 2 time world champion only managed to be faster than his teammate in 2 (!!) of the 17 races that have counted for this analysis after the summer break.

The difference between both official Honda riders was pretty big on track, and it shows with Marc Marquez outpacing Joan Mir by 0.68% on average during the whole season. With Luca Marini joining the team this season, Mir has to step up because as good as Marini is this time he won’t have the excuse of having an 8-time world champion in the other side of the garage.

Marco Bezzechi vs Luca Marini

It might seem that the difference between both of the VR46 riders in 2023 was pretty big because of the difference in points and position in the final standings in the riders championship, but the truth if that Luca Marini was much closer to Bezzechi than what those numbers say.

Both Bezzechi and Marini were hampered with injuries in the second half of the season, but what the graph shows is that apart from that sprint in Silverstone where Bezzechi fought for the win and Marini finished in 11th (more than 1.25% slower), both were pretty evenly matched throughout the season. Sure, Bezzechi was the fastest rider, but not by that much, only 0.15% faster on average of the whole season. Maybe Marini went a bit undercover as he didn’t fight for that many wins and podiums, but his race pace was there.

Pecco Bagnaia vs Enea Bastianini

This comparison is also complicated as the Repsol Honda because Bastianin was out for basically the entire first half of the season, then he struggled to find his feet with the GP23, to get injured just again during the feature race in Barcelona. At the end of the season he managed to get a win at the Malasyan Grand Prix, although it was achieved breaking the front-tyre preassure rule.

There is no doubt that Bagnaia was the better rider of the two (in fact, he was the best from the entire grid in 2023), and this graph was only made to put into perspective just how big the margin between these two was. Again, i think this comparison is unfair as Bastianini has been if not the most unlucky rider this season, (this award has to go to Oliveira) the unluckiest one.