Marco Bezzecchi
Luca Marini emerged as one of the new leaders at Honda in the 2025 MotoGP season, having embraced a bit of advice that the team kept offering him about Marc Marquez.
The 28-year-old left VR46 to join Honda in 2024 when a chance arose to replace Marquez. VR46 had been Marini’s home since he joined their Moto2 team in 2018 and also graduated to MotoGP in 2021. Honda had even been Marquez’s home since his MotoGP debut in 2013.
Marquez left “the highest salary” in MotoGP history to leave Honda for Gresini, as he felt he had to leave the Japanese manufacturer to show himself that he could still fight at the front by getting on a Ducati. His decision also led Marquez to join the factory Ducati team in 2025.
Marini had a steady start to his time at Honda in 2024 and into 2025, but he turned a corner in the second half of this year. His consistency was also huge in helping Honda improve their bike, on which Joan Mir earned two Grand Prix podium finishes through the final six rounds.
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Everybody at Honda kept telling Luca Marini how Marc Marquez spent time with his crew
Marini might not have achieved the same headline results as Mir secured in 2025, with P3 in Japan and Malaysia. Yet the half-brother of Valentino Rossi emerged as one of the leaders at Honda, as he realised what it takes to build a team and he helped any task he felt needed it.
READ MORE: Everything to know about Luca Marini from his net worth to half-brother
Part of Marini’s mindset to chip in wherever needed at Honda comes from his time in Rossi’s VR46 Riders Academy. Marini has also embraced the advice that “everybody” at Honda gave him about how Marquez would regularly spend time with his crew to help their relationship.
“This is something that I learned with my experience,” he told MotoMatters. “Also, following Vale, and when I arrived in HRC and asked people something about Marc, everybody told me the same, they told me this.
“Apart from all the things that we know [about Marquez], [there is] something more that we don’t know. Everybody told me this, and also, Vale was always fantastic with this team.
“To try to always have a good relationship. At the end, Vale stayed with the same crew for all his career, more or less. So, they were like a family at the end.”
Luca Marini is following in Valentino Rossi and Marc Marquez’s footsteps
Would the factory Ducati team have won the 2025 MotoGP title without Marc Marquez?
Rossi and Marquez built their crews like their families and remained loyal to them whenever possible throughout their MotoGP careers. Marquez took Santi Hernandez and Carlos Linan with him from his Moto2 team to Honda in 2013, before the rest of his crew joined in 2014.
Marquez would not do the same when he joined Gresini in 2024, as contractual obligations ensured that only mechanic Javi Ortiz would join him – as he also did when the 32-year-old joined Ducati in 2025. Marquez’s former crew chief, Santi Hernandez, now works with Mir.
Upon replacing Marquez at the start of the 2024 season, Marini realised that the challenge at Honda was “enormous” and even bigger than he had expected. Now, Marini is following in Rossi and Marquez’s footsteps by trying to become a key pillar at Honda as they rebuild.
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