DAZN, the sports streaming service platform that holds the rights to the MotoGP World Championship in Spain, presented a new documentary with Marc Marquez as the protagonist. After making the decision to leave Honda a year before his contract expired at the end of eleven seasons with the Tokyo manufacturer, the eight-time world champion is trying to adapt to the big news that he will face this year.
The most difficult, certainly, will be adapting to the new riding style required by the new bike he will race with in 2024, the Ducati GP23, the current world champion bike. Another clear difficulty will be adapting to a new coaching staff after practically a lifetime with the same group, led by Santi Hernandez.
But he will also have to get used to many other new things, leaving behind the most powerful factory in the world in terms of two wheels to enter the life of a satellite team, where “the family environment” is a trademark. The Gresini Racing lineup of Marc and Alex Marquez was the first to be revealed for the 2024 MotoGP season on January 20.
Alex Márquez, Gresini Racing, Nadia Padovani, Owner and director of the Gresini team, Marc Márquez, Gresini Racing
Photo by: Gresini Racing
“When I saw myself on the screen for the first time in this suit, I felt a strange feeling. I don't see myself in other colors yet, because after so many years with the Repsol Honda Team it's difficult… But I'm excited about this opportunity and I will try to make the most of it”, explains Marc in the documentary.
The Gresini team was marked by the death of its founder, Fausto Gresini, victim of Covid at the beginning of 2021. Far from collapsing, Nadia Padovani, has firmly taken the reins of the company and is taking the team to unthinkable levels.
One of the keys was the unity of all the members, commitment and behaving like a real family. “After seeing him with our clothes, on our motorbike… It's truly a dream come true. Gresini can give him everything a family can give. We will be close, if there are problems he can come and talk to us. We will try to be present in good times and bad, as they say, and we will always be with him”, explains Padovani.
After many years of Japanese rigidity at Honda, Marc is happy to embrace the lifestyle of his new team. “You have to get into their atmosphere, and this is the atmosphere. It's a fun team, where everyone celebrates their birthdays and neither the driver nor the team manager nor anyone else is spared,” he says, referring to the now typical and famous birthday parties. Gresini's birthday.
A style that the arrival of an eight-time champion with Márquez's charisma and influence will not change, underlines the driver born in Cervera: “My influence inside the garage must not change even the Gresini family. That's why this it was one of the reasons why I brought one of my Repsol team members to Gresini, but not the whole team, because they have their own family and their own atmosphere. Changing a driver can't destroy an entire family, so I have to adapt“, reflects the number 93, who will share the garage with his brother Alex for the second time, even if the previous one, at the 2020 Repsol Honda, coincided with the arm injury that kept Marc out for the entire season.
The entire Gresini team at the Riccione presentation, last month
Photo by: Gresini Racing
“As the Márquez family we hope or will try to bring him many trophies“, says Marc. “Have a board with many trophies, victories and podiums in MotoGP. We will try to fill up and give them excellent news and joy.”
However, Marc is aware that these goals will not be easy to achieve, at least not immediately: “I understand, and I am grateful, that there are a lot of expectations from people, because this is a good sign. My job is to avoid all this , don't start the house from the roof, but from the foundations, little by little. I'm the first to have the same ambition and I'm the first who would like to win, but in the last two years I haven't managed to win a single race. So we must set ourselves achievable objectives, where we can get to and hope to go 'in crescendo', as the Italians say“, says the pilot in the documentary published by DAZN.
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