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OK, I sometimes wonder what Marc Marquez's career would have been like, not without his 2020 crash, but without the infamous 2015 episode.
Yeah, because we would probably see Valentino Rossi more often by his side, as Giacomo Agostini often does, paying homage to the greats but inwardly wishing they do not surpass his records.
The reality is that, if we put all his victories and titles on the scales of time, on the one side these and on the other all his injuries, crashes, and his revival, it is simply not possible not to include him among the greatest in motorcycle racing. Not for the number of successes however, that would be banal, but for what the Anglo-Saxons call 'grit', determination with something extra and the Neapolitans, with a much more meaningful expression 'cazzima' (something like a badass attitude, ed.).
For lovers of culture I put this LINK HERE to the slang term. I think it sums up well the positive/negative set of the term. For Marquez is all of these things. There is little you can do about it, class acts are not ordinary people and you have to take them for what they express in what they excel at.
I personally doubt very much those who, in sports as in life, excel at something but don't have in their eyes and voice those flashes that one recognizes in great predators. They are fake-good people. I don't like them. But here I'm getting personal. I prefer those dogs that growl if you approach them, telling you to stay away, rather than those that bite without warning.
I then take it for granted that there is sincerity even in the little lies, in the laughter, in that hiding, in pretending not to believe, openly, that you are the best of all.
But where do you think these class acts, anointed by the gods, get the energy to be who they are if not from themselves? They are a kind of atomic battery, of the sun, which famously burns itself to create heat and light. A miracle of nature, because all other living things need nourishment from outside, to live.
This is to say that Marquez was probably not lying when he claimed that Lusail was not really his track.
In Qatar, in fact, we witnessed another tactical race by the Martian who, as had already happened to him with his brother Alex when at Buriram he decided to follow him because of the tire temperature problem, started slowly so as not to ruin his tires.
A tactic that allowed Morbidelli to momentarily escape and Bagnaia to quickly rejoin.
Two factors that did not in the least affect the strategy of the eight-time world champion, who held his opponents at gunpoint and then attacked when the right moment came. Formidable, whether one is his fan or not.
Here's the thing: Marquez is not just talent, riding ability. He also has a great head, the same head that Valentino Rossi had. And that was why certain tactics with him did not work. Talent and head are a formidable combination. And it is rare even for an outstanding rider to have both.
Giacomo Agostini, as well as Rossi, was like that. So was Eddie Lawson, with a smidgen less talent.
Then there are, in all sports, not just motorcycle racing, those champions, class acts with talent, instinct, aggression. People go crazy about them, they exalt. They don't even know why they excel. And they are the most likeable because they are the ones closest to us. There are humble ones and arrogant ones, but it doesn't matter, that's the lineage.
Well, I have little more to say about the Qatar Grand Prix. And it doesn't matter how it will all turn out, but this had to be written because it also clarifies, in a way, why Gigi Dall'Igna - not Claudio Domenicali mind, Gigi - decided to burn every bridge possible to get Marquez. He knew, he realized, that Marc on an official Ducati, in another team, maybe Gresini's, would have risked him losing another world championship. Risked eh, that doesn't mean he would have won for sure, as it is not sure this year either. And after already losing it last year, to Martin and Pramac, that would simply have been too much. To err is human, to persevere, diabolical!
