“They labeled me as the revenant. And I liked it.” A better nickname could not define Marc Márquez in his 2024 resurrection. A lifeguard-season with the Gresini team in which the Cervera driver has once again been the driver he was, competitive, ambitious, daring, brave and often impetuous, even excessive with his rivals (ask Pedro Acosta, Joan Mir, Aleix Espargaró, Morbidelli or Bagnaia).
But the happy, fun, positive Marc has also returned, which was erased in the previous four “nightmare” years. Today, in Montmeló, Márquez begins a new era, dressed in official Ducati red, which will be his last stage as a rider (at 32 years old in February): the ’93 empire counterattacks for the world title.
“Next year there are no excuses… I have the two best bullets in the next two years,” Márquez acknowledged in the press room of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, where today he will make his debut as an official Ducati rider in the first preseason tests.
A new ambition
“I have the best bike and I am with the team that has won. I don’t have to prove anything, just remain competitive. And out of the corner of my eye I have to look at the title, because I am forced into a factory team”
It opens a new era of at least two years (signed 2025 and 2026), in which he is forced to fight for the title. And so he admits it, without half measures: “I have the best bike, which has won in recent years, and I am with the team that has won. I don’t have to prove anything, just continue being competitive and fighting for those first three positions. And out of the corner of my eye I have to look at the title, because I am forced into a factory team.”
To reach this ignition point towards a new galaxy, that of being an official rider of the best team with the best motorcycle, again in the starting box as the great candidate for the world crown, Márquez has had to go through a 2024 of resurgence from the ashes of the vulnerable and sunken rider who ended up crawling through the mud with Honda Repsol in a 2023 of unfortunate memories: he finished 14th in the championship, having lost the pleasure of riding, with fear of falling and with the temptation to give up the bikes .
The year of recovery
Márquez left behind Honda, his second family and a million-dollar contract to regain his taste for competing with an old Ducati in the Gresini Team
“A year ago I was considering retirement; Now I don’t even think about it,” admits 93, with the smile on his face again.
To get it back, Márquez had to take a risky step, leave his comfort zone, leave behind his other family, the team of technicians led by Santi Hernández, leave the most powerful constructor and give up the best salary on the grid (about 20 million euros), to enter an unknown dimension in search of happiness: a humble satellite team, the Gresini Team, with an old Ducati motorcycle, from 2023, but together with his brother Àlex.
“This year has been very important for me, I have found a perfect environment in the Gresini Team. It was a difficult and brave decision. The most important thing has been to leave this nightmare behind, it has been four years of many operations, and now it seems that I have returned, so let’s enjoy it,” said Márquez on Sunday night at the MNAC in Barcelona, at the MotoGP gala. , which he had not attended as a winner since 2019, when he won his last title.
It has been a year of looking for answers to whether I could be competitive again and I have been finding them, in a positive way, with podiums and victories, and fighting face to face with the best”
“Gresini has given me the perfect atmosphere to be reborn. The goal this year was to find myself again and achieve realistic results. It has been a year that I have never had in my career, and that I hope to never encounter again. It has been a year of looking for answers to whether I could be competitive again and I have been finding them, in a positive way, with podiums and victories, and fighting face to face with the best,” confessed a revived Márquez who did not expect such good results. (3rd in the World Cup, with 10 podiums, including three victories).
His recovery with Gresini’s Ducati went so well that he had a chance to fight for the title. It was after the Le Mans-Montmeló-Mugello trio, when he was 3rd, 35 points behind the leader, Martín. “I came to have doubts and think that I could fight for the World Cup because I was at the top. But in Assen [caída en la Sprint y 10.º en carrera por sanción] My doubts were cleared. And then came races in which I lacked speed,” admits Marc, for whom “the most important thing” about 2024, beyond the world bronze, has been having been reborn as a driver: “I have found myself again. The butterflies of a start, being able to fight for victories and podiums and, above all, feeling fast on a motorcycle, which is what you want.”
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