MotoGP, Marc Marquezb comes clean: “I think I will win at least one more World Championship”
“I think I will win more titles, but right now I don’t see myself fighting for the championship. Pecco is the strongest right now and my goal is to finish in the top three, although it won’t be easy to keep Bastianini behind.”
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on Thu, 11/07/2024 – 11:07
After concluding the race at Sachsenring with a podium shared with his brother Alex, Marc Marquez can go on vacation fortified by his third place in the championship standings, 56 points behind new leader Francesco Bagnaia, and with another great performance in Germany. On the track where he scored no less than 11 consecutive triumphs from 2010 to 2021, many expected the 31-year-old from Cervera to take the victory he has been missing since Oct. 24, 2021, the date of his last win in the Emilia Romagna GP almost three years ago. But although he did not break his long fast, Marc once again managed to straighten out a terribly complicated weekend, remounting from 13th place on the grid to the runner-up slot in the GP, despite a fracture of the index finger of his left hand, and a severe contusion to his ribs, suffered in the violent highside in FP2.
It was a performance that allowed the Spanish champion to score his fourth podium finish in the nine Grands Prix held so far. To which are also added five medals won in the Sprints. A consistency of performance that makes it difficult not to consider Marquez a serious candidate for the title, yet the Team Gresini rider does not feel so.
“The World Championship? People talk to me about it. I’ve been close to it, but you have to look at the reality. And the reality is that I can’t stay in the title fight if I have to catch up on Sunday, if I go out, or if there is this or that – noted the eight-time champion in an interview granted to DAZN – There are two riders, not one, but two, who are consistently faster than me and are doing better. I don’t see myself fighting for the World Championship. Too many things have to happen.”
The fact that he has in his hands a Desmosedici from last year and the state of form of Jorge Martin and Francesco Bagnaia, above all, are scaling back the current ambitions of the eldest of the Marquez brothers.
“Right now I see Pecco as the strongest. He has the mental stability and results and is gaining inertia. The goal is to finish in the top three and it will not be easy to keep Bastianini at bay,” commented Marc, whose goal, however, remains to add more titles to his trophy cabinet in the near future: “I think I will win more world championships, at least one I hope. ”
The Spanish rider will already have his first big chance to win the ninth career title next year, when he will join Bagnaia in the official Ducati team. The destination the Catalan wanted to reach after this year of apprenticeship with Nadia Padovani’s team, but not the only option on his table.
“Going to Aprilia or KTM was option C, but I considered it. Both European factories are doing well, have a forward-looking way of working and progression, and are winning races. It was a real and feasible option,” he confessed, convinced that Ducati was not afraid of his possible marriage with another of the manufacturers on the grid: “If I were Ducati I would not be afraid of another brand. They know that they have the fastest rider on the grid, which is Pecco, and they knew that if it wasn’t me alongside him it would be Martin.”
Marquez then returned to talk specifically about his signing with the Lenovo Ducati team and the challenge that will face Pecco, having to share the box with him over the next two years.
“They were very clear with me, they told me that seeing my progression in the first six races with the 2023 they thought I could do well with the official bike and I accepted – he said – If I were Bagnaia I would take it as a challenge. They put me next to the rider with the most world titles on the grid, with the same bike as me, and I will show people that I can beat him. But you have to ask him how he took it.”
As for the decrease in the number of Desmosedicis starting next season, the Iberian was not too surprised: “It was written that Ducati would lose two bikes, because the championship required it. As a manufacturer and as a Ducati rider, I would prefer to have eight Ducatis on the track, but as a MotoGP fan, I would like there to be four Yamahas,” he admitted, “It cannot be that there are eight, it is an unwritten
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