Marc Marquez welcomes threat that Valentino Rossi ‘would have rejected’

Marquez will be racing alongside MotoGP’s hottest prospect next season when his fellow Spaniard joins him in Italy.

A champion in Moto2 and Moto3, Acosta has long been labelled ‘the next Marquez’ and some even think he could retire the 33-year-old.

However, according to Haro, that thought would have never entered his mind, as the team comes first.

"Marc is fully aware of what's coming, but if there's anyone who's opened the door for Pedro at Ducati, it's Marc Marquez,” he told Nico Abad.

“Why? Because Marc has an amazing connection with Gigi Dall'Igna [general manager] and Davide Tardozzi [team manager].

"'After me, this guy is the one you have to get.' I'm sure he had that conversation, because I know what Marc is like.”

He continued: "He has never opposed Pedro Acosta. He knows he's a generational replacement. He knows it. And that excites him.

“I think that, with all due respect to the other 21 guys, if there's one guy who can challenge Marc Marquez on a Ducati, it's Pedro Acosta."

If Haro is right, it’s a bold strategy by Marquez, who has signed for 2027 and 2028 with Ducati.

Yet he may well feel he owes the team, who signed him in 2024 after several years from hell with Honda.

The nine-time champion underwent a total of seven arm operations and missed the majority of the 2020, 2021 and 2022 seasons as a result.

Another win looked completely off the cards, but he achieved it with satellite team Gresini in 2024 before winning the title upon moving up to Ducati in 2025.

Such status means that, according to Haro, he could have easily rejected Acosta’s signing, something he says former rival Valentino Rossi would have done in his position.

"He has had the possibility, as Rossi did, that Valentino would say 'I don't want this guy' and that was it,” Haro explained.

"When you're a beast of this calibre, like Valentino or Marc, you have that power. You have the power to say, 'I don't want this guy in the garage, because he's going to screw things up for us.' But at every moment, he does the opposite.”

Haro’s comments are guaranteed to create a backlash, particularly given the fact that Rossi partnered five-time champion Jorge Lorenzo at Yamaha from 2008 to 2010.