This year is a fresh start for Marc Márquez in MotoGP. After a decade with Repsol Honda, and faced with the poor performance of the Japanese manufacturer, he decided to move to Gresini and thus ride a Ducati – in order to assess his condition and confirm that he is still capable of fighting for the best results.
The Spanish rider said on the Audi Spain YouTube channel that it is normal to seek these changes when going through negative periods: ‘When you go through a tough season, what you look for are changes to find that confidence. With confidence, you dare to do different things. What I seek, or intend, with this change, is to grow again and find that confidence’.
Having said that, Márquez admitted that the last four tough years cannot simply be erased: ‘Sports are lived in the present. You cannot run away from what you have experienced in these four years, you have to start from a base and build on it’.
For the first time in over a decade, the Spanish rider is on a very different bike than he had before. And that requires unlearning, letting go of bad habits in riding, and an adaptation:
– [Unlearn] many things, yes. I have been riding the same style of bike for 11 years, so I have some habits that I cannot just go to the garage and say, “I ride this way, this is my riding style, you have to set up the bike like this for me.” No; you have to adapt to the bike and then fine-tune the final details. But there are some habits you have to get out of your head. It’s not easy, but that’s where the groundwork comes in: the pre-season, a mindset before starting, being realistic about where you come from. And above all, detach yourself, keep what you must, but know what you need and want and where you want to go.
