Spanish Flyer
Spanish Flyer
RACE WATCH
Marc Márquez is the teenage heir to Spain’s Grand Prix racing throne
DENNIS NOYES
MARC MÁRQUEZ IS THE MOST POPULAR MOTORCYCLE RACER IN Spain. He won the 2010 125cc world title after a season-long, four-way battle with fellow Spaniards Nico Terol and Pol Espargaró and Britain’s Bradley Smith, but it was his brilliant and controversial rookie year in Moto2 that brought him fame in his homeland.
Spanish fans believe this 19-year-old from Cervera is destined for greater glory. Márquez is expected to move up to MotoGP next season, and Honda has been pressuring Dorna to revoke the “rookie rule” that obliges first-year riders to enter the premier class via a satellite team. Dorna, however, has said that, just as American Ben Spies had to spend his rookie year on the Tech 3 Yamaha satellite team, Márquez will not be able to go straight into the factory Repsol Honda team.
After failing to score a single point in the first three rounds of 2011, Márquez became the dominant rider in the very competitive Moto2 class. He arrived at Phillip Island leading Germany’s Stefan Bradl by a single point. Having won five of the previous eight races and finished ahead of Bradl in all eight, Márquez seemed destined to win the title in his rookie season.
Then, things went wrong. Márquez crashed in practice, doing extensive damage to his Suter chassis. The team needed more than half an hour to repair the bike after it was recovered, and they sent Márquez out with less than enough time to complete a single lap at the end of the session. He unwisely carried on at near race pace after seeing the checkered flag and slammed into the back of Thai rider Ratthapark Wilairot, who missed the next two races. Márquez was penalized by having a minute added to his qualifying time, a sanction that his team regarded as severe but many in the paddock thought was lenient.
“Some things are like 125: You have to know how your bike will change as you burn off fuel and the tires wear. In Moto2, you have all the normal problems, plus everyone has the same power.”
Even starting last on the 38-rider grid did not prevent Márquez from storming through to third and arriving a week later in Malaysia only three points behind Bradl, who had finished second in Australia.
The championship seemed well within Márquez’s grasp until Malaysian corner workers failed to show rain flags at the start of first free practice, and Márquez was among four riders caught out by a sudden tropical shower. Smith seemed at first to have come off worst (badly bruised ribs, coughing blood), but it turned out that Márquez had hit his head and was suffering double vision for the second time in his career.
Not only was Márquez unable to ride in the final two rounds, ending up second to Bradl in the title chase, he missed almost all of the preseason. After an operation to correct his vision, he showed up in Qatar having had so few laps in the off-season that he was still searching for base settings on his 2012 Suter.
After the first three rounds, however, it is clear that Márquez is back and faster than ever. His win in Qatar was not without controversy due to a risky last-lap pass on Thomas Luthi that was judged “legal but on the limit” by race direction. Then, he was unlucky to finish second at Jerez to Espargaró when rain brought out red flags. A week later in Estoril, Márquez won a fierce battle with Espargaró and was back in the points lead and looking as fast as ever. We spoke with Márquez in Portugal.
It’s nearly impossible for an American rider to understand what it is like to be a racing hero in Spain. Even after Wayne Rainey won two 500cc world titles in the early 1990s, he could usually walk around his hometown of Downey, California, without being recognized.
Sure, in Spain, we have the good fortune to be in a country where motorcycle roadracing is one of the most popular sports with a huge following. That popularity means we have lots of good, safe tracks—four GP circuits and many others spread all over the country where regional and national races are run. There are times when I wish I could just be a normal person so I could go out with my friends without having to stop for pictures and autographs. On the other hand, when so many people know and admire you, you realize you are doing something right, and that it is worthwhile.
You won a tough battle to become 125cc world champion, and now you are in your second season of Moto2. Some people compare Moto2 to the way 250cc GP was in the 1970s when the factories were not racing and the bikes were similar, but I have never seen anything like Moto2: 32 bikes, all with similar frames and identical Honda 600cc engines. How would you compare Moto2 with 125cc?
Moto2 is difficult. At first, it was really hard for me to understand how you have to race these bikes and deal with this kind of competition, how to use practice time and attack qualifying. Some things are like 125: You have to know how your bike will change as you burn off fuel and the tires wear. In 125, there were a few of us who had better bikes, and we were always racing each other. But in Moto2, you have all the normal problems, plus everyone has the same power. That means we sometimes have more than 20 riders in the same second after qualifying. You have to get in the lead group, try to save your tires and stay out of trouble so that you will be there over the second half of the race.
Moto2 engines are allocated by drawing. Sometimes, you have one of the faster motors, but I recall a couple of times seeing your bike outside the top 20 in top speed. Has there ever been a time when you drew an engine that made it impossible to fight at the front?
No, that doesn’t happen. Maybe you are fifth-fastest or maybe you are 25th, but the differences are minimal. It is important to qualify well and get away with the leaders so you can use the slipstream to pick up the 3 km/h that you might lack.
I think what is really positive about this series is the equality of the engines. If you work with the team in practice to get the most out of the bike, you can run up front even if the luck of the draw gives you one of the slower engines. The differences are so small that you can ride your way to the front if you and the team work correctly in practice.
What caused your crash in Malaysia last year?
It was the first flying lap. There were five or six of us running together, about halfway around the track, and the curve coming up looked normal. There were clouds, but there wasn’t a drop of rain on my screen. Jules Cluzel, Smith, Yonny Hernandez and I went in fast, and we all went down. The track was totally wet, but nobody had shown a flag. We were all on slicks and confident that the track was dry. At first, I only had pain in my shoulder. I went to the clinic and started seeing double. I had experienced this before, but I remembered that it cleared up in four days. I realized I couldn’t race in Malaysia and that the championship was probably lost, but I still had a slight chance if I could win in Valencia.
It must have been a hard time, hoping every day that the problem would go away.
In my room back home, there is a TV in front of the bed with a single red light under the screen. In the week before Valencia, I woke up every morning hoping that I’d see just one red light, but each time I saw two. I thought with a little more time, my sight would clear up and I’d be able to start training, but days and weeks and then months passed and there was only slight improvement.
My doctor said he could do an operation, but that he needed to wait until the vision stabilized. If we operated too soon, he said, I could have double vision to the other side. Even after the operation, there was a period of recuperation with some traces of double vision. What really helped was that my doctor told me step-by-step what was going to happen, and he was always right.
You were hoping to be ready for the final preseason tests in Spain but didn’t make it.
After the operation, I had correct frontal and downward vision and correct peripheral vision, so I could drive a car or ride a motocross bike. But when you ride a roadracer, you are looking forward with your head down. That means you are looking up, and when I looked up there was still some double vision. I was in perfect shape to go roadracing if they set up my Suter like a chopper!
“In my room back home, there is a TV in front of the bed with a single red light under the screen. I woke up every morning hoping that I’d see just one red light, but each time I saw two.”
Looking at your races in Moto2, you are usually in the lead group from the start, but somebody else usually does a lot of the leading until the final laps. Is that a strategy you use everywhere?
It depends on how practice has gone. We talk, my team manager, Emilio Alzamora, and I, about what strategy to take. If the bike is working really well in practice with new tires and a full gas tank, we try to break away. But usually with a heavy bike and a lot of grip, it is hard to get away. When grip starts to fade and the bikes start to get loose, there will be fewer riders who can keep the pace. There is more risk trying to outrun riders who are right on the edge of grip. But later in the race, when you are sliding around, the riders who can stay on line and get drive from worn tires break away with less risk.
Last year, toward the end of the season, there was a lot of talk about you going into MotoGP. Have you decided to make that move in 2013 whether you win the Moto2 title or not?
No, I’ve not made up my mind. We are just starting an important year, and I would like to go to MotoGP with the Moto2 title. I’ve never even sat on a MotoGP bike yet. The team had arranged for me to test a Repsol Honda RC212V at the end of last season, but I couldn’t because of the crash.
What did you have to change about your riding style when you went from 125 to Moto2? Was it a difficult transition?
I took to Moto2 very quickly. I never tested any 600cc streetbikes, and I never tested any chassis other than the Suter. I was able from the first tests to run the times of the fastest guys, but I had to figure out how to exit the corners; 125 is all about mid-corner speed, then you feed the power on all the way out. Even though the Moto2 engines are not so highly tuned, there is still a lot more power than a 125, so my problem was that I was throwing the bike in like a 125 and making a long trajectory. But when I was getting to the curb, I was still leaned way over and trying to put down 120 horsepower, and I was highsiding off the curbing at the exit. What you have to do with a Moto2 is square off the corner a little and make sure you get the bike picked up, so when the power hits, you are on the fat part of the tire and can get out of the corner fast without being leaned over too far.
Thomas Luthi was angry after your pass at Qatar; he said you left him no room. Now that you have seen the replays, what do you think about that situation?
Right after the race, I went to apologize and clear up any misunderstandings. I said, "I'm sorry you feel like you do, but I didn't do anything incorrect." Look, this is motorcycle racing for the world cham pionship and if, on the last lap fighting for the win, that pass can't be made, then a lot of the passes made on me in this class should have been questioned, too. You look at the passes that Valentino Rossi has made in key races over the years and you look at my pass and you have to say, if Rossi's passes were legal, then mine was, too. Safety is important, but we are racing. What happens back there in the pack is much, much rougher than what happens up front.
We've talked about Luthi and Andrea lannone as rivals, but you are also running again with Espargaro, a rival you know well.
PoT and I have been at it since we were little kids, but we were usually in dif ferent classes. He's two years older than I am and was usually moving on when I came into a class. But we hooked up in 125 GP, and now we are at it again in Moto2. He beat me in Jerez because he was in the lead on the right lap when they stopped the race. They did the right thing stopping it when they did; it was getting too dangerous. The frustrating part is that I stuck my neck way out to regain the lead when it was raining the hardest and Tied that last lap-the most dangerous one and the one that didn't count! But that won't be the only time Pol and T will be fighting for the win.
