Marc Marquez And The 2019 MotoGP World Championship: History, In So Many Ways
Author
Gal RatnerWritten By Michael Gougis. All photos by Michael Gougis
There's no such thing as a “soft” Championship. That's a term used by people who have never put in the effort to try to win one. But there are Championships that are more impressive than others. And sometimes the immensity of the accomplishment only becomes evident in the perfect vision of hindsight.
Marc Marquez' 2019 MotoGP title was literally the most dominant Championship in MotoGP history. With 420 points, he earned set a record for most points in a season and with 18 podiums in 19 starts set a record for podium visits. Most significantly, the gap back to Andrea Dovizioso was 151 points, the biggest gap between first and second in the history of MotoGP.
I wrote the book “Legend: Marc Marquez' 2019 MotoGP World Championship,” in part, because I thought the season deserved another look. It's easy to just write it off as part of the otherworldly list of accomplishments Marquez has achieved (and I use the word “otherworldly” deliberately; he was one of the Aliens who dominated the sport in the 2010-2019 decade.)
But a closer look at the season reveals that it wasn't easy. It shows that Marquez was on the limit and over most of the time. It shows that his bike wasn't always the best. It shows how hard he had to ride, how much he overcame, and most of all just how freakishly, inhumanly good he was at the absolute height of his motorcycle road racing superpowers.
Remember that by 2019, Dorna, MotoGP's promoters, had taken dramatic steps to equalize the performance of MotoGP motorcycles. Honda's ground-breaking five-cylinder engines were outlawed; rules limited the cylinder bore to 81mm, effectively restricting (or at least slowing) the race for higher-revving engines. The software and hardware for electronic rider aids were standardized. No more could a manufacturer find performance advantages there. And tires were standardized, with tire wars a thing of the past. Michelin's famous “overnight special” tires, cooked up based on data gathered during Friday practice and flown to the track for Sunday's race, were a thing of the past. And tire manufacturers could no longer allocate “special” tires for particular teams or riders.
In a Championship designed to make absolutely, positively certain that no one ran away with the title, Marquez did exactly that.
It's really hard to argue that Marquez enjoyed the best machine in the field. Five-time World Champion Jorge Lorenzo, his Repsol Honda teammate, never got on with the RC213V, and the machine broke his back and his will to keep racing with a vicious crash in Assen. It's reminiscent of the current situation at Honda, where even the factory riders are cruising around at the back of the field, frightened of their malevolent machines.
When we, the viewers, or even the racers, are going through the season, it's easy to miss the big picture because we're so focused on the moment in front of us. A look at the 2019 season in one book, from beginning to end, tends to highlight the enormity of the effort it takes for everyone involved. The travel is exhausting. Logistics are a nightmare. And the top-flight riders are booked from the moment they get off the plane to the time they get back on. There's no time to recover from a simple cold. Broken bones are plated as best they can be and the rider hustles back into battle.
In 2019, Marquez faced all of that and still managed to beat the best riders in the world.
I loved researching and recreating the season, week-by-week. You could see how the year progressed, the frustrations, the fears, the insanity that separates the good from the absolute best. By the end of the year, there was zero - zero - reason for Marquez to be riding as hard as he was. The title was his; there were tens of millions of Euros in the bank. Yet week after week, Marquez threw it on the ground, got back up, got on his backup machine and went back out and rode just as hard - or even harder. Seven times, Marquez passed someone on the last lap to win. He didn't need to do that - and some would argue it would have been smarter to settle for second than risk going for first. The book gives just a small insight into the mentality of someone who literally could not settle for second.
Compare the 2019 season to the seasons that have followed. They've been thrilling, with Championships that have gone down to the wire, and lots of riders winning or competing for the podium. But not once in the past five years (and I'm including 2024) has anyone stepped up and crushed the field.
The book offers insights into Marquez' rivalry with Valentino Rossi, his relationship with his brother, the lengths he would go through to keep Fabio Quartararo's growing confidence in check. Together, they paint a picture of an once-in-a-generation talent in what is, at once, the best and worst of place. Marquez was on top of the world, and was fighting like hell to stay there.
Lastly, this book is an indulgence of mine in one particular way. I love motorsports photography, and I've been fortunate enough to live during a period when technology has made up for the physical and financial limitations that prevented me from pursuing a photography career. I have images that are, to me, gorgeous, and they capture much of Marquez' journey from dominance to despair and back. The banner in the stands at Valencia in 2019 show how much the Marquez brothers meant to the Spanish fans. The testing shots from 2022 show just how compromised Marquez was on the bike because his arm hadn't healed correctly. The images of his breathtaking highside in Germany in 2024 show that he's still willing to push, to risk everything, even though there's nothing to prove. But Marquez has been to the top, can still see a way to get back there, and knows what's left for the Champion who lets their guard down for a second. It's so easy to start falling from the peak ...