“I don’t think of leaving Honda before 2024”

A day before his 30th birthday, which falls on Friday, Marc Márquez started in Madrid what in slang is called a ‘press junket’, a session where the cast of a film or a series attends the select media. This Sunday in Madrid the first chapter of the docuseries ‘Marc Márquez: ALL IN’ will be released to the public, which can be seen in its entirety on Prime Video from Monday and will not leave anyone indifferent.

We are doing this interview on the eve of your 30th birthday, by the way, congratulations. In Psychology, a characteristic of the so-called ‘crisis of the 30s’ is to think that there is no more time to achieve what was previously dreamed of. Is there a problem?

Well no, I think I had the crisis at 28 or 29 (laughs), and at 30 I don’t feel it.

When you’re a champion, do you still live the dreams?

Beyond the dreams you live in illusions, try to fight again for a championship. The dreams you had as a child were so beautiful, but now they are illusions that you have and you have to chase to achieve them.

Others begin to reflect deeply on the mistakes they have made in the past. What decisions made would you change?

The first, to return to Jerez after the injury, none of the others, the others have been decided, it will be better or worse, but none of the other decisions will change, zero.

And this crisis precedes the so-called burn out syndrome, when the work is unbelievable and you throw in the towel and settle down. During the holidays, was there a moment of ‘burn out’?

Yes, yes, last year, 2021 and 22 was a go, go, we’ll find something else in life, but now that I’m turning 30, I feel, I won’t say rejuvenated, because I’m still young, but excited about alive, with everything, excited and happy.

What made you decide to give yourself one last chance?

It is simple and clear because there is a solution to improve personal life, even without thinking about the professional one. I thought ‘yeah, fine, I’m going to stop riding motorcycles, but I don’t want to live in pain’. If there was no other remedy, it was over, but there was a remedy and we went for it (the fourth operation) and that meant that I would also do better on a professional level.

You’re giving yourself this last chance, but if at the same time Honda doesn’t respond, can you consider that if they don’t give you that winning project, Honda might leave before 2024, when your contract?

No, I’ve been at Honda for two years, they’ve respected me a lot throughout my sporting career, but, above all, in these years I’ve been injured and my goal is to win and my dream is to do it again at Honda . . I won over them, we suffered together and now I want to win over them again. Logically there are many factors, both on and off the track, and there we all have to row in the same direction to move forward.

How long is Marc’s patience with Honda?

No, now that patience is recharged, I have a lot to fill. Yes, in Valencia after the test your patience is running out, but because it’s time to give a wake-up call because they have two months to work. Now is not the time for me to run out of patience before the start of a season because there is no time to recharge it, with what you have you have to get 100% It’s always worse than you expect, because you always expect many and expectations are always They must be tall. But the preseason has just started, the season hasn’t started yet. There is a relationship with Honda, we always understand each other, when we win, when I am struggling and now they are struggling and this is what makes everything flow and decisions are made together.

But are you short on time for the first Portimao GP (March 26)?

Logically when in the first pre-season test the concept of testing is very different from these conceptual tests that you go at the right time, exactly, you hit a bullet, All In. You will try in Portimao and with that you start, you are not like some factory, click up, click down, let’s try it and that’s it. We had that before, in 2014 during the test in Malaysia I remembered that it was two o’clock in the afternoon I was going to leave the circuit, everything was over, but not now. It’s six o’clock and it’s raining and I’m still shooting because I have to.

In recent times we have seen you in programs for the general public, from the sensual interview with Joaquín to the more serious one with Risto and All In, where you are also an executive producer, you opened the channel. Why is it important to reach the general public? Do you think he doesn’t know you?

It’s not for me to know myself anymore. A pilot, an athlete is known for results, not for what he does outside. But it’s true that until now I haven’t opened up in personal life or saying some things because I wasn’t psychologically ready or I didn’t feel ready or mature enough to endure some things. Now yes. The documentary is Marc for everyone. The entire topic that is discussed in the documentary is as if he is talking to a friend while eating. It won’t be liked and someone will comment of course but that’s how I am and whoever likes it is fine and whoever doesn’t, I’m very sorry. It is also true that MotoGP, the world of sports in general, is experiencing a change in media and athletes, if you have a good team behind you, you also know how to move so that you can continue to the front, always a priority the sports.

Well, I’m taking advantage of the fact that “you’re ready” and let’s get to the sauce. The 30s is also the age of settlement, a stable relationship, children. In ‘All In’ you reveal that you have sworn off this 2023, for all that the 30 years have given themselves, and that you will find a girlfriend and leave the market. Are you serious?

I have this oath with a friend who is ten years older than me and we have it since we were 21. But we are changing, I tell him ‘until 40 and you until 50’, just in reality joke. The deadline is a joke between friends, you don’t choose ‘this month I will have a girlfriend and I will find her’, you don’t choose it.

What qualities should the candidate possess?

I don’t know, maybe I’m the problem, you never know (laughs).

Are you that poor?

Nooo, it’s not difficult, but these are life events. Moments, sometimes they come, sometimes they don’t. It depends. And the day you least expect it, maybe today, you never know, I have hours left in the day, someone will appear and change everything. Logically for ten years I have not been hermetic, there are illusions, but at this moment it just did not come out.

Valentino Rossi has already disappeared from the MotoGP grid and Sepang’2015 appears in those programs. In my opinion, despite being cornered in that race, you are the big loser in terms of image. Is it still discussed, aside from being asked, because the general public is left alone with its tendentious truth and not yours?

No, what happens is that in a docuseries you have to deal with all the subjects and the subject of Valentino is present in my sports career, you have to talk about it, but I also talk about the subject of Jorge Lorenzo, the subject of Dani Pedrosa, logically they don’t have much morbidity, less time is used because not too many things happened. Everything that happened in your sports career is important to say and more if it is a documentation about you, it is something in the media that you do not do to justify anything. I’ve said it in its time and I say it in docuseries, perhaps more clearly, it’s over because the subject needs to be dealt with without further ado.

It hurts what you met in All In: “What in Valencia threw me in the last corner, yes, but someone who did all this to me by overtaking me, will he win a title?, no”

Why me…? I know what I experienced, I know what I saw.

And you’re only 23 and he’s 36?

Imagine a 23-year-old boy made to experience that. What I say in docuseries is what I think and that’s what I would say to a friend over a meal. What will bring the tail? Maybe yes, but it is what it is.

At 30 years old, will you do the same?

At 30 I think the situation will be managed differently, all this, starting from one side and from the other. Now in 2023 everything will be managed differently.

And I don’t forget the tears we saw in the box, Portimao at the end of your return after nine months, in the Sachsenring after winning again. All In starts with emotion on the surface. But since you came back to Aragon, the fun is back in boxing, to celebrate even the little things. Is this the new important slogan? Are the tears dry?

They did the interview for me in the documentary in the same place in different months and I said to them, why not at the end of the year? And from experience they told me that during the year there will be different emotional situations and if they did this to me at the end of the year I would not be broken. Why cry before and now happy? Just for the physical state. Indirectly and directly affected the mood and yes, won, but I don’t know how. I won the pain, without desire and it made you cry. Now I’ve won, well I haven’t won yet, I’m on the podium, results, being realistic and knowing where you came from and where you want to go, achieving small goals and celebrating them because it’s fuel for the body . And, above all, because I’m having fun and this is the most important thing.

At Mugello when you announced that you had an operation, I was really surprised in the series that only two pilots came personally to congratulate you, even though on social networks all were good wishes. It’s like a little camaraderie. Is that the most common in elite sport?

It’s hard for you to understand, for example, but I understand it because the age profile is very young, they, we, very young in general. Who is coming? Aleix, the oldest, Dovizioso, who is not mentioned in the docuseries, are the veterans. Quartararo was great to deal with, it was more than just over the phone. I think it’s more because of the age profile than because of what they feel or not. Because when you are young you don’t give importance to some things.

So all the goodness seen lately in MotoGP is fake?

Social networks are to blame because without them the good would be less, everything looks good for him.