Michael Scott | December 28, 2016
He’s only 23 years old and a five-time world champion. Let that sink in for a bit. We take a look back at Marquez’ championship-winning year.
The Marquez Phenomenon didn’t just regain lost momentum in 2016. It took a clear step forward. The rider who won his third premier-class world championship title with three races to spare did so in a new way, with a very different mental approach. And more than somewhat against the odds.
This was a new version of the rider who, in 2013, told me that his main weakness was that whenever he saw a motorcycle in front of him, he was unable to resist trying to overtake it. The new mature Marquez (still only 23) had learned that sometimes you had to accept being beaten if you wanted to accumulate championship points.
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Photography by Gold & Goose
“At the beginning of the season, we had big problems,” he said after securing the title at Motegi. “We were behind with the bike, and the winter tests were complicated.”
One of this worst moments of the season, he said, had been at the Qatar tests, lagging badly. Even after a step forward had lifted him to within less than a second of Lorenzo on the final day, it was just a single lap. And he knew how hard he had to ride to produce it.
“We had problems especially with acceleration. Not bad power, but we couldn’t open the throttle. The other bikes, especially Yamaha, were much faster on corner exit.”
And then all the way down the straight. At the race a few weeks later, Marquez was almost six mph slower than the fastest Ducati.
The new technical rules had put Honda on the back foot. The change to “unified software” gave electronic engineers a big hill to climb. While Yamaha and Ducati were already familiar with Magneti Marelli equipment, Honda had stuck with its own software last year, and were still seeking base settings rather than urgently needed detail refinements. Not to mention adapting to the new Michelin tires.
At the same time, a new engine design had reversed the direction of crankshaft rotation, and the engine was relatively undeveloped; in particular with too much crankshaft inertia. Normally this could have been addressed with a lighter crank, but the freeze in engine design meant the riders were stuck with it.
Marquez had to dig deep into his faith in Honda, and his faith in himself.
“I had several meetings with Honda,” he said. “I promised them that I’d be more conservative and focused on getting as many points as possible in the first races, but they had to help me in the second half of the season. I asked them to show everyone how Honda is able to react to challenges, because we were so far from our top level. And really, little by little, we’ve been cutting our gap to the others, which allowed us to have a very competitive RC213V in the latter part of the season.
“Honda kept their promise,” he said.
The polite kid from a blue-collar family in Cervera, a country town an hour inland from Barcelona, was already a racing phenomenon. Talent-spotted at eight, he came to GPs on a 125 in 2008. Valentino Rossi won a single race in his first season; it took Marc two years, but then he won 10 of them, and the title. Since then, he has matched or exceeded Rossi’s progress. He should have won Moto2 at his first attempt in 2011, but after seven race wins, a crash on unflagged water in practice at Malaysia left him with a career-threatening concussion and double vision, only repaired by micro-surgery the following winter. He walked it in 2012 with nine utterly dominant wins.
He replaced Casey Stoner in the Repsol Honda MotoGP team in 2013, and broke all youngest-ever records, as he surged to a maiden title by four points over Lorenzo with six wins; then dominated completely in 2014 with 13 victories.
But 2015 was a mis-hit, with “too many mistakes.” This translates as too many race crashes. Six times he scored zero points. Even with five wins, it put him third behind the Yamahas.
The year ended with Rossi’s notorious verbal and then on-track physical attack in the penultimate race at Sepang. It ruined their previously cordial relationship, so that it was a landmark when they shook hands in parc ferme at Catalunya (Rossi first, Marquez second) in the emotional aftermath of Luis Salom’s fatal crash. It is still a rather uneasy truce.
Was the attack from his boyhood hero the cause of his winter rethink? Not according to Honda team boss Livio Suppo. “He looked at the year before and realized if he hadn’t fallen off trying to win when it wasn’t possible, he could have been champion again,” he said.
Marquez on the back foot is still an amazing piece of work, especially with this new mature approach. He made the podium in Qatar, managed to win in round two in Argentina, where Lorenzo fell off and Rossi struggled with the hard rear tire imposed as an emergency measure for a compulsory two-part race. Then Marc, unbeaten in the USA, resumed his usual domination at Austin, with a fourth straight pole-to-flag win.
A patient third at Jerez was followed by his only real mistake of the year. On a tricky damp track at Le Mans, “I was trying to do more than the bike could do.” He fell off, but still managed to score points after remounting for 13th. But it was a wake-up call to, once again, focus and rein in his insatiable desire to overtake. He must take it easy until getting back to tracks that suited him better.
“With Lorenzo getting the points-lead back we were heading to Mugello and Catalunya, which are not good tracks for me. I thought, ‘It won’t be easy!’” He managed second at both. “As it happened, those races helped us to start to believe that the title was possible.” Second to Rossi at the latter race, where Lorenzo was knocked off by Iannone, returned Marc to the title lead.
All the while, Honda was taking steps with electronics and chassis modifications, while Marquez took profit from bad conditions at Assen with a prudent second to Jack Miller while Rossi crashed out and Lorenzo was nowhere. Then a tire gamble, switching early to slicks on a drying Sachsenring, gave him a third win. It was round nine and well below his usual average. But significantly he was the only top rider to have scored points in every round.
It would be five more races before his next win, at Aragon—a track he had been waiting for. By now, Honda’s work had given him “a bike I can ride as I like,” while Rossi and Lorenzo had faced their own vicissitudes. For which Marquez claimed some credit.
“I know that the mistakes happen for a reason; when a rider is able to keep a strong pace and put pressure on the others, it increases the possibility that the others will make mistakes.”
As happened at Motegi, the first of three flyaway rounds. On arrival, Marquez had a lead of 52 points over Rossi, with Lorenzo close behind. But with four races left and 100 points on the table, it was too soon to count any chickens. “It will be almost impossible to win the title here,” he said before the race. Then both Yamaha riders crashed out while Marquez won. He was World Champion again.
Released from the bondage of his “get the points” resolution, Marquez returned to his more natural mode of expression.
He admits he is always prepared to crash, and he did crash 17 times in 2016, putting him equal third with Yonny Hernandez (behind Crutchlow—26, and Miller—25). Here’s the rub. He crashed in practice, “when I was looking for the limit, to be safer in the race.” Only three of those crashes happened in races, and on two of them he remounted and scored points. And two of them—in Malaysia and Australia—came after he’d won the title, when he could return to his natural mode—win or bust.
He somehow escaped injury. As Cal Crutchlow said: “We call him ‘The Cat,’ because he always lands on his feet.”
More remarkable is his ability to save moments that, to most other riders, would have meant a fall—an ability he shares with the man whose “youngest-ever” records he broke—Freddie Spencer.
Few more spectacular than his long front-wheel slide in practice at Brno, where he managed to pick the bike up with his knee and shoulder, and regain traction and control, although now heading off the track. By sheer luck the pit lane entrance gave him an escape road. That save, one of many during the year, was, he thought, less miraculous than one captured in photographs during testing at Brno in 2014. “The slide this time was very long, but the angle of the bike was 67.5 degrees,” he said. “In 2014 it was more than 68 degrees.”
Rossi was one of many admirers. “It is something he does a lot,” he said. He had been able to save it “because of his position on the bike, and because of his talent.”
Talent is hardly a big enough word for Marquez. This past season put him equal with great rival Lorenzo, with five championships. But Marc has taken just nine years, Lorenzo has been racing for 15. The two are equal also on pole positions, 65 apiece, with Rossi at 64. Rossi has more race wins, with 114 in 21 years and 348 starts, a percentage rate of 32.75. Lorenzo—64 from 250, 26 percent. Marquez 55 from 150, 36.7 percent. His 55th win this year put him one ahead of Mick Doohan on the all-time all-classes list, sixth overall behind Agostini, Rossi, Angel Nieto, Mike Hailwood and Lorenzo.
2016 was a great comeback—newly mature, well-controlled, able to look at the big picture instead of just the bike in front of him. Marquez ended up firmly on top.
And still just 23 years old. CN
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