Kings are not deposed, they are beheaded, and that is exactly what Liberty Media is trying to do with this absurd idea of rewriting history and counting only the 500/MotoGP titles.
It must have occurred to someone, probably totally ignorant of motorcycle racing history, that Agostini's 15 titles are unattainable, so why not make 2026 more attractive with the possibility of having Marquez - because only he can do it since Valentino Rossi has retired - reach the 8 titles won by the king of kings in the premier class?
What escapes the Americans, is that Giacomo, Mino, Ago, is the king of kings precisely because he has won 15, because he scored his debut win in the Daytona 200-mile race, and because, finally, he has also won world championship titles as a team manager managing motorcycle racing legends like Kenny Roberts and Eddie Lawson.
It should be explained to those who are unfamiliar that F1 is different, and that while the most successful driver is Michael Schumacher with 7 titles to his name tied with Lewis Hamilton, followed by Manuel Fangio with 5 titles and the 4 titles of Alain Prost, Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen, no fan of the top formula would dream of belittling the 3 titles that Ayrton Senna holds together with Jack Brabham, Jackie Stewart, Niki Lauda and Nelson Piquet...
Short of separating the world championship titles won with naturally aspirated engines, from the turbocharged ones! Do we want to create a differentiation with hybrid engines? Because this is exactly what LM wants to do, since Agostini in his years won with two types of engines, 4- and 3-cylinder, with a 6-cylinder born and forgotten. And let's stop saying he reached that number because he raced two races a day: there were world championships with only 8 events. He simply did two seasons in one.
It is true that for real fans numbers count up to a certain point, as Marquez said when talking about Messi, because there are the champions, the superstars and the Legends. Senna was stopped by fate, in a car, the Williams, that was not very competitive. Could it have delayed Schumi's rise? We don't know, but it is likely, and he is said to have been The Greatest, and personally, having watched both of them race we agree.
This might mean that Liberty Media can try to change history, but no one will give a damn about this little scam. Yet we find it wrong, because it is true that F1 has always been equal to itself, but it is also undeniable that motorcycle racing has never differentiated with its champions, in whatever displacement they raced.
Unhappy is the land that breeds no hero, Brecht said, but we sports fans need Myths, Legends that are not built in a day, and the second, ridiculous hall of fame for riders with at least two world championships in the premier class was enough for us. Is Dani Pedrosa in for THREE world titles in the minor classes or for numbers of Grand Prix Wins or, more simply, because he fought, won and lost with the best? And why wasn't Angel Nieto, 12+1 world titles, included?
We realize that all this is a sterile controversy, but Marquez's 7th title will not, eventually, make Marc more legendary because in 2026 he could join King Ago in the Top Class. The Legend of the Spaniard stems from different reasons, from a grandiose return from hell, not from the fact that he will probably never reach Agostini's 15 laurels.
And Valentino Rossi's greatness lies not in the 7 titles, and the missed 10th that would have equalled Giacomo in Top Class, but in HOW he won them and for what he represented for the premier class.
In short, this sticking to numbers to create characters seems to us a steaming pile of hogwash, which does not better represent the great sportsmen who run Liberty Media starting with Stefano Domenicali, whom we hold in high esteem.
Characters are born because we tell their stories, to the best of our ability. And it would be good for LM to think about storytelling rather than Instagram stories. Because storytelling lasts, but it needs space and time. The Internet runs too fast. You don't make history with 15 lines or 15 seconds. It is true that today much (everything?) is based on social media where it is easy to quickly create (false) legends. But the Beatles and Pink Floyd, like Bach's toccatas, will forever remain in music history. We will see if Maneskin will withstand the insult of time.