Michael Scott | October 23, 2019
Cycle News In The Paddock
COLUMN
Champions. They’re All The Same But Different
Hail to the chief. It’s obvious who I mean. After the Thailand GP, starting with a terrifying, thumping crash, and ending with a cheesy eight-ball celebration of that many championships, Marquez’s reign was extended again.
This coincided with a reader survey in the British weekly Motor Cycle News, as to which of two modern candidates was the Greatest of All Time: Valentino Rossi or Marc Marquez?
The poll put Rossi marginally ahead, and I have the feeling that it would be the same in most countries. The 40-year-old may already have passed his best-before date (a statement that risks the wrath of his fans, but he’s no longer a serial winner), but he still commands fanatical loyalty and support.
Marquez has yet to achieve the same level in this regard, and the 26-year-old Honda man may be less likable (a matter of opinion, which in the end hardly matters). But he’s on the way to eclipsing all sorts of records, with clearly more to come.
He’s different from Valentino but no less impressive.
There are many variations—one that Valentino is an accomplished showman and manipulator of public opinion.
It was he who introduced the cheesy pantomime to the world championships. He has a lot to answer for —though, to his credit, he stopped doing them quite a long time before he stopped winning races, but some time after they’d become a more than a bit clunky. Marquez and the eight ball were on the wrong side of being contrived, but I guess he and his cohorts feel they have to do something.
Courting popularity has plenty to do with creating a profitable brand. The winning is a necessary part, but it takes the commercial enterprise to monetize it, an area in which Rossi knows no peers.
But greatness as a racer is rather harder to measure, although easy to appreciate.
Marquez’s progress to his eighth championship this year has been simply awe-inspiring.
He was already dazzlingly fast and frighteningly competitive. The addition this year has been the maturity of a seasoned 26-year-old, able to moderate his natural instinct to try to win no matter what and to fall off at least once in free practice to determine the limits (11 so far this year, compared with 17 in 2018).
This year’s Honda has clearly not been easy to ride: along with Ducati-challenging power has come difficult handling and front-end feel. Marc frequently spoke of how, at tracks that did not play to the bike’s strengths, he would go for a strong finish rather than over-riding. In this way, along with nine wins in the first 15 races, he has never finished lower than second, and non-finished only once. Amazing.
So, in fact, is everything he’s done since his days on a 125. Remarkable he could do it then, even more so that he can do it with interest now, 10 years on. He’s always been without mercy: even when he looked like a choirboy back in his teens.
He’s always been polite, too. Maybe too polite. When Valentino has attacked him, he’s declined to rise to the bait. Perhaps that makes him look insincere. But his way of belittling and psyching out rivals is different.
Rossi did it by summoning up scorn that his fans find it easy to share.
Marquez does it with his on-track performance, by ignoring setbacks, shrugging off injury, and overtaking all challengers, come what may. Although he’s not averse to the occasional smilingly snide backhanded comment: like that, Quartararo rides the Yamaha “in a good way.” Obviously, unlike Valentino.
Thinking back over the champions I’ve known pretty well over more than three decades, there’s a vast variety of personalities.
Eddie Lawson—aloof and self-contained; Freddie Spencer—ethereal, other-worldly; Wayne Gardner—aggressive and determined; Wayne Rainey—thoughtful and determined; Kevin Schwantz—swashbuckling but vulnerable; Mick Doohan—burning intensity; Alex Criville—self-doubt conquered; Kenny Roberts Jr.—total self-belief; Jorge Lorenzo—relentless pursuit of perfection; Nicky Hayden—almost too nice; Casey Stoner—willful genius.
The list leaves out Rossi and Marquez. Not because they’re more special, though in some ways, of course, they are. But all the champions, personality quirks aside, share something more than talent, and more than high-level support, though both are essential.
It’s utter determination. To a level that’s actually quite scary, whether it’s hidden behind a façade of charm or blatantly displayed.
And so we come to the new boy Fabio Quartararo. He is boyish and humorous and seems able to make light of his talent. Scratch the surface, however, and you’ll find something deadly.
In WorldSBK, Jonathan Rea proved that you don’t have to be Spanish to be World Champion. Maybe in a year or two, Quartararo will do the same.
This year, though, Marquez showed that it certainly helps. CN