After the record-breaking 2023 French GP, Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda Team) sat down with British publication The Guardian to speak about his journey from his 2020 injury to the present day.
“I continue fighting because, in the end, my passion for racing is more than what I was suffering,” begins The Guardian’s article with the eight-time World Champion. A sentence that epitomises Marc Marquez. A sentence that epitomises every MotoGP™ rider. Suffering is part of any sport, but what the #93 has been through since that 2020 Spanish GP crash has been suffering and then some.
The brilliant ‘Marc Marquez: ALL IN’ documentary - now free to watch on Red Bull TV - is something The Guardian chat to the Spaniard about. What started off as a documentary showing his journey back to the top quickly became an inside look at how Marquez learned he would need a fourth surgery to stand any chance of returning to the peak of his powers.
“So it’s difficult when I opened my house, and my personal life [to the filmmakers]. When you have these difficult moments the natural reaction is close in and don’t show people what you are feeling.
“Some people see us like heroes but we are humans and have difficult moments. We have doubts. We started the documentary thinking I will come back to the top. But then the situation changed a lot in the middle of the documentary and I was very close to retirement.”
Marquez also gives us an insight into his “killer” mentality that has led him to become an all-time MotoGP™ great. It’s something we saw at the 2022 Italian GP, days before he was set to undergo that fourth operation in the USA.
“This is one of my strong points and sometimes my weak point. It’s my killer mentality. I always attack, never defend. And this is my very ambitious mentality.
“Most of the time it gives me success and it’s very positive. But sometimes it can be a negative, right? For example, when I try coming back too soon from injury I need the good professionals around me to stop me. But I say to them: ‘When I’m injured I’m like an animal inside a jail.’ I also say to the doctor: ‘When you open this jail I’m an animal that wants to be out and I will run. So don’t open this jail before you think I’m ready to go.’”
Marquez also chats candidly about his comeback from the fourth operation in 2022, including just how important his P2 in Australia was: “I can understand that achievement in finishing second. So when I have good news now I will celebrate even more than before. Winning used to be normal. But now it’s not like this,” explains Marquez.
Topics such as Jorge Lorenzo describing his former rival as “the only rider who isn’t scared of crashing”, how the 2023 French GP was one of the best weekends of Marquez’s career, Honda’s struggles and his future, read the fantastic article by clicking the link in the opening paragraph or HERE!