The 2025 Qatar Grand Prix crowned Marc Marquez, imperial with a pole, a sprint victory, and a victory on Sunday, while Pecco Bagnaia made a heroic comeback from 11th to 2nd place. But in the shadow of the spotlight, Manuel Poggiali, coach of the Ducati Lenovo Team, played a crucial role, as revealed in the fourth episode of the INSIDE Ducati Lenovo Team series. This two-time world champion (125cc 2001, 250cc 2003) fine-tunes the performances of Marquez and Bagnaia with surgical precision.
Le Qatar Grand Prix 2025 offered the public a weekend of pure spectacle: a Marc Marquez imperial, author of the pole position, winner of the sprint and the Grand Prix, and a Pecco Bagnaia combative, coming back from the fourth row to deliver a first-rate Sunday performance. But behind this sparkling duo, one name keeps coming up repeatedly behind the scenes of Ducati's success: Manuel Poggiali.
The former double world champion (125cc and 250cc), now technical coach within the official Ducati Lenovo team, establishes himself as the secret weapon of the Bologna factory. Discreet, methodical, omnipresent, he observes everything, camera in hand, from the edges of the track.
« We positioned cameras at turns 7, 8 and 12 to analyze trajectories and changes of direction ", he explains in the fourth episode of the *INSIDE Ducati Lenovo Team series. " The goal is not to change the style of the drivers, but to refine it, to correct micro-details that can save crucial tenths »
Manuel Poggiali is the discreet architect of Ducati's triumphs
A surgical method. Put them on films, discusses, shows, dissects... then starts again. It is in this painstaking work that Marc Marquez found the keys to dominate a track where he had only won once before: " Winning here is special. I've often finished second at Losail, but this time I managed everything well. I had something in reserve »
Even Gigi Dall'Igna, the great architect of Ducati, praised the “intelligent” race of Marquez : " he knew perfectly how to save to strike at the right time »
For its part, Pecco Bagnaia had a disappointing Saturday, but a phenomenal Sunday, a frustration he expresses bluntly: " What makes me angry is not being able to do this on Saturday. On Sunday I was aggressive, precise… But I want that all weekend. »
The coaching of Put them on contributed to this surge. During the tests, he recorded Marquez's reactions live to analyze them later with him. Every adjustment is calculated, every data return integrated.
And the results? Let’s talk about them: Ducati places five bikes in the top 6, takes his 21st consecutive victory in MotoGP, and shows once again that its dominance is not only due to engine power or formidable aerodynamics... But also to the collective intelligence behind the wall. Manuel Poggiali, in the shadow of the spotlight, confirms that in modern MotoGP, titles are prepared as much off the track as in full attack at 340 km/h.
