Marc Marquez’s Grand Prix victory at Aragon on Sunday was much more than the end of a three-year drought for the Spaniard. He has kept a much lower profile than usual since he arrived at the Gresini team, while sending out very strong messages below the radar.
Winning again 1043 days since his last success is already a feat for someone who nine months ago made the riskiest gamble of his career. Leaving Honda, his career-long MotoGP home on which he was the flagship totem of the winged empire, to join one of the more modest independent squads in the paddock and ride a year-old bike brought no guarantees of success.
But Marquez’s victory at Aragon hides much deeper consequences than just the story of his return to the top step of the podium. The implications of his superiority around one of his favourite circuits involves much more than most people can imagine, and to delve into them means dissecting the rider’s roadmap; that “plan” that he has been talking about since 2023.
One piece of advice that Carlos Sainz Sr gave to his son when he was trying to convince Red Bull to allow him to debut in Formula 1 was to send messages. “I always told him to try to win because without winning there was no option, and from time to time, as much as possible, he should send ‘messages’ that would attract attention: a ‘pole’ in the wet, a fast lap, things like that,” the two-time world rally champion (1990 and 1992), has said on several occasions.
In the case of Marquez, his messages have accumulated on the track and, lately, off it as well. The strategy has worked out wonderfully in removing a huge weight from his shoulders – “I weigh two kilos less,” he joked – and in allowing him to face the remaining eight Grand Prix much more relaxed, without the expectation and pressure that could have come from not having been able to win yet on a Ducati after 59 victories on the Honda from 2013 to 2021.
“Marc changed brands to be a champion,” one of Marquez’s closest confidants told Autosport after hugging the star of the day. “You don’t have four arm operations and give up a multi-million euro contract like the one he had at Honda, just to have fun. Now he knows that he can win again, and that will be very important for his confidence.”
Marquez’s grit since switching to Ducati machinery has finally paid off
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
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