Should Marc Marquez have joined Ducati sooner? “No, I feel part of Honda”
“When you do that kind of move you put a lot of pressure on yourself"
Last year at Buriram, Marc Marquez explained that he was leaving Repsol Honda for Gresini Ducati because he didn’t want to finish his MotoGP career with any ‘regrets’.
“The most important thing is that when I retire, I don't have any doubts about my decisions,” Marquez had said in an interview with Crash.net.
Speaking towards the end of a second winless season at Honda, Marquez had also endured further right-arm operations plus other injuries as he pushed an uncompetitive RCV over its limit.
But the gamble of walking away from his big-money factory Honda contract to ride a year-old Desmosedici has paid off handsomely.
The eight-time world champion returns to Thailand victorious in three of the last six GPs, is behind only Jorge Martin and Francesco Bagnaia in the world championship and has a factory Ducati seat for 2025.
Given his MotoGP rejuvenation, which continued with P1 during Friday practice at Buriram, Crash.net asked Marquez if he regretted not leaving Honda sooner.
“Ha, no, no! Because with Honda we achieved a lot and I feel part of Honda,” Marquez replied.
“Still, right now I’m riding a Ducati and next year I will be a [factory] Ducati rider. Of course, I will try to defend Ducati colours.
“But Honda has been and will be a very important part of my career, or maybe the most important part - you never know.
“But I was saying when I was in Honda – because sometimes [people] said, ‘Honda is Honda, he is winning for the Honda’. [But] there were other Hondas…”
Marquez dominated the 2018 and 2019 seasons, then took his final three Honda wins between arm surgeries in 2021. Meanwhile, no other RCV riders won from Cal Crutchlow in 2018 until Alex Rins in 2023.
“If you are a good rider, if you go to Honda and say, ‘I don’t care about the money, just I want to ride [your] best bike’, they will give to you [their] best bike if you are a good rider,” Marquez continued.
“So in this case I did the opposite. I go to Ducati and I said, ‘I don’t care about anything, I just want to ride the best bike’.”
Even if that bike is a year-old machine, run by a satellite team.
“Now in the future when I will retire, I will be quiet about myself because I tried everything,” Marquez said.
“Of course, when you do that kind of move [to Ducati] you put a lot of pressure on yourself and there can be a lot of negative comments if you don’t achieve what you want.
“But I already achieved what I wanted.
“The target was to try to be longer in my career and try to feel competitive again. Then, if I win another title, this will be something in another hand.
“But my main goal is already done.”
Although Marquez still has a very slim mathematical hope of the 2024 title, the realistic target is to keep third overall ahead of Enea Bastianini, the rider he replaces at the factory team next season.
The next best GP23 rider is currently VR46’s Fabio di Giannantonio, in ninth overall, with less than half of Marquez’s 345 points.
Peter has been in the paddock for 20 years and has seen Valentino Rossi come and go. He is at the forefront of the Suzuki exit story and Marc Marquez’s injury issues.
