At 31 years old, and starting his 11th season with the queen displacement, Marc Márquez (Cercera, 1993) still feels butterflies in his stomach on the first day of school, on the return of the MotoGP World Championship. And even more so after three years of forgetting, since the damn crash in Jerez 2020. In this time, 93 has undergone surgery four times on his right arm, has suffered two episodes of diplopia (double vision) and has returned six times. .. and has seriously considered retiring. He explains it in a conversation with La Vanguardia at the HRC headquarters in Portimão.
How are you? Has he physically recovered 100% yet?
I've already had four operations on one arm. Like anyone who has had an operation, when the weather changes I feel a bit of discomfort. But it's not an impediment or a limitation, it's not pain like I've had for the last three years.
And emotionally?
Emotionally, I'm happy. When you spend three hard years and return to normality, you value it even more, going back to a normal life, training again, riding a motorcycle when you want and not when your arm leaves you… All of that helps.
And in the mood to start the championship? When he finished the tests in Portimão he looked a bit angry: the bike doesn't go the way he wants it to.
I'm in good spirits because you start a season. Yes, it is true that after this race we will have to survive a bit, but in four or five Grands Prix we will see where we are. But I have courage and illusions, because the championship is very long. And from one race to another you can change the situation. You can't start a defeated World Cup, otherwise it will be very long.
What is missing from the bike to go well?
For me, it lacks braking, stopping the bike straight, and especially the traction coming out of the curves, is where it is most difficult for us to understand what is happening, to understand when the bike skids and when it doesn't... This is where we are working the most.
He said that the relationship with Honda is like a marriage. In Austria she threw at them "if it's not with you, I'll find my life". Considering a divorce? (Knowing that she has one more year left on her contract, 2024)
I can't figure it out right now...
But if the bike is a disaster all year...
Will be an error. I have these two years of contract. My number one goal, which I only have in my head, is to grow this project and return to where we were. And that is not done by me alone, nor by Honda alone, nor by the team alone; we all do it together. We have to make this project grow so that there is a queue again at the HRC truck so that they want to ride this motorcycle, which is not the case now. We have to be more united than ever. That does not mean that there are moments, like the one in Austria, that you have to push for a reaction. Now I know what I have to compete with, so it doesn't do me any good to get angry; I have to find solutions.
Alberto Puig admitted in an interview (in Solomoto) that if they don't give him a “winning bike” they would lose you. Honda takes it for granted, that it can fly...
All riders want a winning bike. You see that there are pilots who leave the mark and start to do well. But I have a two-year contract and I can't consider other things.
After three years without winning the title, no world champion has regained the crown since Casey Stoner in 2011. What makes you think you can?
That I have six titles... (laughs) So, with one more it's less noticeable if you have less... But it's difficult: I come from three years of injuries, where the bike hasn't been the best, where the team has been lost after losing the number one driver, and we cannot come from a year where we have only achieved two podiums (mine in Australia and that of Polo in Qatar) and suddenly be candidates for the title. It was at the press conference of candidates for the title [along with Quartararo and Bagnaia] and I did not see. It is that we are not here, you cannot create false expectations.
Well, some are counting on you: Bastianini, Miller or your brother put you as a candidate...
Yes, but they call you more by name than by my current level. You cannot create false expectations because otherwise it will be frustration after frustration.
In his Amazon Prime documentary All In, in one of the most emotional and intimate moments, Grandpa Ramon tells him: "Leave Marc, if you've already won enough." And you tell him: "Grandpa, one more chance." The question is until when?
If you stop to think about it coldly, the man is right: one operation and another, he saw me suffer, and he knows me, and he sees my face and immediately knows it, and that's why he told me "Let it go, if with what you have you already live”. It was a very nice, real conversation, because for him the cameras are not there. He had already called me on his day. But I feel motivated. The passion, the desire to compete, to be here, are still bigger than the suffering I've been through. And yes, I was about to quit.
At what point did you see it more clearly?
After the fall of Indonesia [20 March 2022; the problems of diplopia were reproduced] I was about to say enough. Then, from one day to the next, everything changes and you have to be patient and insist.
Is there an expiration date?
No no. As long as I look competitive… We are in a sport in which you don't depend only on the athlete, but on the motorcycle, on the team… If you don't have the whole set, you can already be Superman and you won't win. As long as I feel competitive, if I don't win, then I don't win... But I'm still the best Honda.
What have these three years that have passed, from Jerez 2022 to Valencia 2022, been of use to you?
They have been like a reality check. She led a life, honestly speaking, that seemed idyllic to her: everything worked out just fine. But not all life is white, there are also blacks and grays. I lived the other face of an athlete, the one that is not seen. When you spend these three years you mature in a different way, now I see things in a colder way, before it was very hot, "it comes, it goes", and now I analyze everything more.
The new Marc of 2023 has changed residence and management. He commented that he was going to live in Madrid to recover his arm, due to the proximity of the doctors, but he has stayed. Is there also some economic reason?
What do you save? 4% or 5% of personal income tax? I've already heard this comment… If it's for financial reasons, I'm going to Andorra, which is an hour and a quarter from Cervera, and not a five-hour drive [Madrid].
He already tried to go to Andorra...
There are moments in life that you need a change. It coincided with the fact that he had the injury, he needed a change. I went to Madrid for a year, I have felt good there, I have formed a good team, and at the same time the need has come to make a change in my environment.
What were you looking for with the new management?
New things, a change. I am very grateful to Emilio [Alzamora] for what he did, it was 18 years of sports career, but now he had other needs. That too was like a marriage, it doesn't last a lifetime. It is important to know when to stop on time. Now we have created an agency, with my brother and Jaime Martínez [his new manager] to look to the future. I am an active person, I like to do things, to live life. We are fine in Madrid, we train well, we have not changed our lifestyle, we are more comfortable we can go motocross, and when we feel like it we go to Cervera, we see the avi, the mom…
I return to his grandfather. He told her at one point: "Find yourself a quieter little job." I don't know if this little job is a representation agent, a headhunter. If you had to sign any driver out of all those who go up, which one would he choose?
The representation agency at the moment is focused on me and Àlex. But I like this world of motorsport, and tomorrow when it ends, why not continue helping a driver or have something? Everything I like to create is with quality. If things are not done well, it is better to stay at home.
