Last night, Marc Márquez was the exceptional commentator of the 6th stage of the Dakar on the canal Teledeporte of the RTVE channel of Spanish television.
He demonstrated a good knowledge of the subject and even discussed the problems linked to possible participation…
Marc Marquez : “Anything motorized and gas-powered, I follow it. And of course, the Dakar too. On the Dakar, we don't know what there is, every meter there is something new, it's not a circuit like for us. We can't get carried away by emotions. If I would? If you do it, you do it well, I would do it on a motorcycle because that's my discipline. But I think it would give me a hard time because you have to prepare it for several years, and gain experience, otherwise you can hurt yourself very much. You can save one or two falls, but not all of them. »
What he admires most is the self-sacrifice of the pilots…
“Physical exhaustion, getting up early, sleeping little. I look at the schedules and they don't suit me; they have to sleep five hours… But hey, if it’s to ride a motorbike, that motivates you, but to go to school, no.”
The pilot then detailed the Iberian participants before talking about his next season…
“On the 25th, we leave for tests in Malaysia, then Thailand and Qatar, then the start of the Grands Prix. Year after year you see things, you try to improve, you try to learn, and first comes the pre-season. We will try to prepare for the first race, but I learned that the World Championship is very long. During the pre-season you can be in one place and at the end of the year in another completely different place. I'm training to be at the highest level and I'm performing even better than last year. Honda works too and that's what counts. I see the year clearly, I always see it clearly. »
But the man from Cervera takes nothing for granted…
“Every year I feel like someone is going to beat me. This is my mentality. You can't look like a winner and think "I won last year and I can do it this year." At the end of the day, my mentality is that others are training more, I'm going to go to the race and they're going to beat me. It motivates me. »
Márquez will therefore start the 2018 season with a seventh world title as his goal, which would place him tied with Phil Read and John Surtees, behind Carlo Ubbiali (8), Mike Hailwood (9), Valentino Rossi (9), Ángel Nieto ( 12+1) and Giacomo Agostini (15).
Sources: Todocircuito, Trademarks
