What kind of a pairing will Marc Marquez and Pecco Bananas make in the factory Ducati MotoGP team next year?
Let’s compare them to a few famous pairings and see which of them the new Ducati Lenovo team-mates are most likely to emulate in 2025.
Ike and Tina Turner
The American musical duo became superstars until their divorce. After that, Tina went on to become an even bigger superstar and appear in the good bits of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. (I’m pretty sure that Jorge Martin would like to see Gigi Dall’Igna face the wheel after busting their deal…) Ike Turner went on to become a deranged crackhead.
Verdict
Ike beat Tina all the time, just like Marc is going to beat Pecco constantly once they’re on equal equipment.
Bonnie and Clyde
One of the most famous outlaw duos, Bonnie and Clyde became folk heroes as they robbed banks and had shoot-outs with the American cops. It didn’t end well, though. The G-Men sprung a trap on them and riddled their car with hundreds of bullets.
Verdict
The two Ducati riders aren’t likely to become quite as lovey-dovey with each other as Bonnie and Clyde. Pecco hates Marc. Marc doesn’t hate Pecco or any of his other rivals. He merely wants to rip their still-beating hearts out of their chests and eat them whilst laughing at the lamentations of their bereaved kinfolk. Even if they do end up as bestest buds and go on a winning spree, Marc and Pecco may be surprised by KTM star Pedro Acosta popping out from behind a tree with a Tommy gun.
Hansel and Gretel
The fairytale pair of kids were enticed into a gingerbread house by an evil witch, but ended up out-smarting her.
Verdict
Does MotoGP’s Wicked Wizard Gigi have an ulterior motive for tempting a pair of MotoGP world champions into his red gingerbread house? They’d better have their wits about them.
Scooby Doo and Shaggy
Unkempt hippy Shaggy and his enormous talking dog Scooby were part of the team who drove around solving mysteries in their van, “The Mystery Machine”. Their role mainly consisted of running away and hiding in terror while Velma solved the mystery and Fred and Daphne stood around looking pretty.
Verdict
Marc Marquez is certainly a dog lover, but he prefers Dachshunds (which explains his success at the Dachshundring in Germany). And while Pecco has a tendency to get scared and crash his motorcycle, he’s unlikely to do anything for a Scooby Snack. (Unless Mama had baked them, of course. He is Italian, after all).
Bert and Ernie
The Sesame Street duo are best friends who share a bedroom. Bert is the sensible one of the two idiots, while Ernie is known for his love of rubber duckies.
Verdict
Pecco will be familiar with sharing a bedroom with other guys from all his sleepovers at Valentino Rossi’s Neverland Ranch, while Marc will have shared rooms with his brother, so it might not be too much of a stretch. They could save a lot of money by sharing a motorhome. And Marc will find that a rubber duck is significantly more useful in wet conditions than a Honda RC213V.
Harry and Meghan
Bird-brained British royal Harry Hewitt and his gold-digging American wife Meghan “I’m the victim here” Sparkles are two of the least popular celebrities in the world. Meghan wanted to be a princess right up until she discovered that real life princesses like Kate (who we’re big fans of at MGPN as her photoshop skills are far superior to our own) spend most of their time doing boring cack like opening hospital wards and meeting wingnuts who have spent 40 years knitting tea cosies for impoverished Rwandan villagers or whatever. Harry wanted to be a prince up until Meghan told him that he didn’t any more. They then disgraced themselves and embarrassed the royal household by revealing family secrets and repeatedly claiming to be victims. Pampered, multi-millionaire victims of, y’know, like, hate crimes or something, yah?
Verdict
Could Marc Marquez tempt Pecco into running away with him, abandoning the VR46 gang and humiliating Valentino Rossi with embarrassing revelations about what went on during those Neverland Ranch sleepovers? No, of course not. Just because Marquez is the Spanish Antichrist doesn’t mean we should be comparing him to Meghan. The poor guy’s never done anything even remotely evil enough to deserve that kind of abuse!