VOLUME 56 ISSUE 50 DECEMBER 17, 2019 P89
the "Junior World Championship."
Into GPs in 2008, already
backed by Repsol, his first race
was round three in Portugal. Riding
a KTM, he finished 18th, 51 sec-
onds behind winner Simone Corsi.
Current MotoGP riders Takaaki Na-
kagami, Andrea Iannone and Pol
Espargaro were in the same race.
His first points came in the
next round, 12th in China; his first
podium four races later at a wet
Donington Park. He was third,
half a second adrift of that year's
champion Mike di Meglio, and
five behind the winner Scott
Redding, whose "youngest-ever
GP winner" tag lasted until Can
Oncu's 2018 Valencia GP victory.
Like Redding, Marquez was just
15. Today, the minimum age limit
has returned to 16.
That was his best result in
year one, and he had to wait
until 2010 for his first win. But
the show was on the road. There
would be nine more that year and
a first world championship.
High-level support has meant
high-level machines throughout.
In Moto2 in 2011, Marquez was
the only rider to have direct sup-
port and a custom-made chassis
from the Suter manufacturer and
a handpicked team. He crashed
out of the first three races, then
won the fourth. By the time they
got to round 17 of 18 in Malaysia,
he'd won six more and closed
to within six points of title leader
Stefan Bradl. He looked set for a
maiden title win, before a fateful
fall on an un-signaled wet patch
on his first out lap. It left him with
career-threatening double-vision
problems that most, fortunately,
responded to microsurgical
repair.
Then it was straight into the
factory Honda team in MotoGP
for 2013. It doesn't get much bet-
ter than that.
This is well-trodden ground.
Everybody knows how Marc's
premier-class career began:
the youngest-ever pole quali-
fier, youngest-ever race winner,
youngest-ever champion, and
only the second rookie champion
(after Kenny Roberts).
Then he did it again in 2014,
'16, '17, '18 and now '19.
This was not his most success-
ful year in terms of race wins. In
2014, there were 14 of them, out
of a possible total of 18, or 77.8
percent. This year there were
only 12 out of a possible 19—a
OF
STATISTICS, A
BALANCE,
KEEPS ON
THAT
(Left) The new
challenge
from Fabio
Quartararo
has arrived,
and Marquez
knows it.
This is only lap two of the Argentina MotoGP. Marquez
pulverized the world's best that day in South America.
