Following his latest exhibition at Motorland Aragón, his main rival for this season’s title, Andrea Dovizioso, surrendered to the Spaniard. In an act of sincerity and capitulation, the Ducati #4 acknowledged that “at present, nobody can beat Marquez“.
Along the same lines, the Briton Cal Crutchlow declared the following before the Spanish appointment: “You give Marc an Aprilia or any bike on the grid, and he ends up on the podium.”
The numbers speak for themselves, telling the tale of the overwhelming superiority of the pilot from Lerida this 2019. A more mature (26 years old) and more consistent Marc Marquez, has won 8 races and finished second in another five. The only instance in which he hasn’t climbed to the podium was in the United States, where he suffered a fall.
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His comfortable lead means that he could seal his sixth MotoGP crown (eight across categories) at the Thai MotoGP this weekend, and with four appointments still to the end of the Championship.
In order to do so, he will only need to add two more points than Dovizioso in Buriram. Besides his obvious natural driving talent, there have to be other factors which allow Marc Marquez to achieve those legendary results. Below we explore some of those factors.
Mental strength and cunning
One of Marc Márquez’s most valuable assets is his mental strength. Behind that mischievous smile hides an insatiable predator, always ready to take on any psychological -or physical- challenge that may jump on his path. He has demonstrated his mental prowess in his head to head battles with another master: Valentino Rossi.
Well aware that he could not defeat the Italian with just sheer mechanical power, the #46 has deployed other strategies. Rossi is famous for his psychological battling style with which he has torn apart a long list of rivals. His technics, however, have not worked their magic with his Spanish alter ego. If anything, those challenges have only served to motivate the Honda #93 even more.
Another lesson that the Catalan pilot has also learned from his Italian teacher, is to be ruthless with his opponents. Just like Rossi, Marc Marquez does not give respite or an inch of compassion to anyone who could be a potential threat.
The Spaniard brings his enemies close and studies them in order to familiarise himself with all of their strengths and weaknesses and then uses that knowledge to defeat them. This attitude, however, has resulted in several incidents such as that involving Alex Rins during the qualifying session (Q2) in the Czech Republic.
In a similar style, he hasn’t thought twice about glueing himself to someone’s back wheel in order to steal the pole in the last minute, just as he did to Dovizioso in Italy and Rossi in Great Britain.
Same risks, less falls
Despite being well known for falling often in his insatiable quest to explore his own limits and those of his machine, Marc Marquez has reduced those in half in 2019. This does not mean, however, that he is taking fewer risks than in previous years, or that his piloting has become more conservative. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Marc Marquez likes to push his own limits at every race, always in search for greater communion with his bike. At the same time, he continues making the delights of his fans with extreme moves which demonstrate his fearless driving style remains intact. That is, in fact, the way in which the Spaniard boosts his confidence before every race.
Ability to adapt to his Honda
In any case, all of the above virtues would be sterile if was unable to achieve the necessary rapport with his very powerful bike. In 2019, the Japanese makers have increased the power of the Honda at the request of Marc Márquez himself. The increased horsepower, however, makes the RC213V even harder to control. So much so that only the Spaniard rider has been able to achieve that perfect harmony with the machine.
Images of ‘Marc Marquez´s secrets’: Honda HRC
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