Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/434045
FEATURE 2014 MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPION MARC MARQUEZ P108 in it, make it enjoyable to share. Even for his beaten rivals. Or at least some of them. Rossi is a big fan. Lorenzo not so much. Those records? Here's some of them: he won the first ten races in a row, the first ever. He went on to equal and then break Mick Doohan's record of 12 in a season. Winning the title made him also the second-youngest champion in history, knocking Freddie Spen- cer to third. And he was the youngest to win back-to-back titles, outranking none other than Mike Hailwood, who did it in 1963. Marquez is the latest and by far the best product of a Spanish system of rider educa- tion and development that has been devel- oped with ever-increasing support for the past 20 years or more. He is the perfect model of the modern-day requirements for major sporting success. You have to start taking it seriously from al- most before you can walk. From a blue-collar family in Cervera, in the countryside, 100 km from Barcelona, Marc started riding at five, after pressing his father Juliá (Catalan for Julian) for his first motorbike. He was soon racing: motocross, Minimoto and dirt-track; and was talent-spotted aged eight, taken into Guim Roda's team. It meant he could do what they could never previously afford: road-racing. By the time he was 11, and attracting national attention, he was on a 125 two-stroke GP Honda RS125; the tank shortened so he could reach the handlebars. Now the move that was decisive to his ca- reer: Marc joined ex-125 World Champion Emilio Alzamora, then running the Catalun- yan Royal Automobile clubs national team. He was on his way to grand prix racing. Alzamora recognized at once he had a pre- cocious talent. "I knew him when he was 12," Alzamora said. "But when I explain to him things about riding, about how to do the corners, I talk not with a guy of 12 years, but of 25. Alzamora was a valuable mentor. Quite apart from the riding tutelage, Alzamora's senior role with the Monlau Competicion racing group gave him influence with Dorna and more im- portantly a direct link to Repsol, Spain's larg- est and most long-standing sponsor. Marc arrived in GPs as a wild card in 2008, embarked on a full season in 2009 and took the 125 title in 2010 with ten wins. A pattern that continued when he moved to Moto2 in 2011, taking seven races in a display of al- most instant superiority that quite eclipsed early leader Stefan Bradl, as he adapted to his first-ever four-stroke. He'd likely have won more and a maiden title, but for a career- threatening injury in practice for the Malay- sian Grand Prix, penultimate round. Caught out by an unflagged puddle on his out lap, he suffered concussion with a strange con- sequence: residual double vision that – "after I saw seven different doctors" – was fixed by surgery. Bradl was champion. Finally much relieved by full recovery over the winter, his 2012 Moto2 title came with nine dominant wins, none more impressive "WE CALL HIM THE CAT BECAUSE HE ALWAYS LANDS ON HIS FEET, WHATEVER HAPPENS." - CAL CRUTCHLOW