INTERVIEW
P56
RIDER OF THE YEAR: MARC MARQUEZ
"THE STRONG POINT FORBE
MARC IS I THINK WOULD
BETWEEN HIS TALENT AND
HIS AMBITION BECAUSE
HIS AMBITION IS TO WANT
ALWAYS TO BE IN FRONT. SO
YOU CANNOT RELAX, YOU
ALWAYS TRY TO BE IN FRONT
OF HIM. THE WEAKEST POINT
IS THAT HE HAS NOT SO MANY
WEAK POINTS – VERY SMALL
WEAK POINTS. PROBABLY
HE HAS A DIFFERENT STYLE
THAN ME. I'M A LITTLE BIT
MORE PRECISE AND MORE
CONSISTENT AND HE'S A
LITTLE BIT IMPRECISE.
- JORGE LORENZO
"
three and six, respectively. Nor (Top left) Marquez'
were Marquez's small crash- parents – mother
es – though Mugello was the Roser and father
Julian.
fastest, several others were at (Above) Things
high-speed corners: Assen's weren't always rosy
much-feared Ramshoek, for between Marquez
instance; and again at Silver- and his main rival for
the championship,
stone and Mugello.
Jorge Lorenzo.
On every occasion, he was
able to get up and get going
again. At the British track, he dislocated his shoulder. It was promptly popped back in again, and that
afternoon he came within .081 of a second of winning the race. Bitter gall to his fellow-Spaniards,
each of whom broke his collarbone, Lorenzo twice,
and suffered for it.
It was not the only unpleasant taste, especially
for Lorenzo, after Marquez lost little time in demonstrating that the things he'd brought with him from
the rough-and-tumble of Moto2 included the merciless tactics that saw him censured and punished
several times in that class.
It was round three at Jerez: Last lap, last corner.
He'd been worrying at Lorenzo's back wheel all
race long, with several near collisions. On the last
lap he attacked at the far hairpin, but Lorenzo let
him by and watched him run wide on the exit. He
thought he'd done enough.
One hairpin left: A corner of many notorious lastlap clashes – remember Valentino Rossi punting
Sete Gibernau off in 2005? Mick Doohan doing it to
Alex Criville in 1996? To mention only two. Lorenzo's
