Márquez ready to fight for the title again: “It’s in my hands”

After a year 2024 dedicated to getting back on track, Marc Márquez is setting off again this season to attack the highest goals. Accustomed to winning everything or almost everything during his first seven years in MotoGP, the man who has only won six Grands Prix in five years has undeniably succeeded in giving new impetus to his career by breaking with Honda to bet on a Ducati satellite in a year of transition.

Reassured about his talent within the second family who helped him to be reborn, freed from his physical problems and now adapted to a bike very different from the RC213V, the Spaniard today has all the necessary tools to succeed. allow you to harbor great ambitions.

“The questions I asked myself were answered, and in a positive way. I am competitive, that was the main question, and this year I will be with the best bike on the grid, the best weapons to fight for a title more. We’ll see what I can do.” he anticipated at the end of last season during a conference given in Madrid for his sponsor Estrella Galicia.

“My challenge is to have a full pre-season, where I can prepare physically, and logically I would like to fight for the title. That’s why I have the best bike and the best team. I have all the tools to fight for the title, now it’s in my hands.”

Judging by his ability to fight at the top of the basket from his first Grands Prix with the Ducati last year, many are ready to bet that 2025 will be the year of Marc Márquez’s return to the title. Although he displays his ambitions without hesitation, he is nevertheless more cautious. Also, to Luca Marini who affirmed at the end of last season that we could already consider that the 2025 title had been acquired for him, the Spaniard wanted to respond: “I wish it was scripted and easy, but if you want to be champion, you have to earn it on the track.”

And to argue: “They say that with the official Ducati, I’m going to win everything… We’re in MotoGP, it’s the best championship, where the best riders race, where my teammate has won 11 races [en 2024]which is huge. We tend to look at the fact that I have won a lot [dans ma carrière]but in sport we live in the present.”

“Every year, young people arrive,” recalled the eight-time world champion. “It will not only be a championship between Pecco and me, and not only between Ducati. We will have to see the evolution of the other brands, there is also Jorge Martín with the Aprilia, who has won races, and Pedro Acosta in was also close with the KTM… We will try to give 100%, but I am aware that it will be very difficult and that everything must be perfect to win a championship.”

Márquez may be cautious, but he knows full well that he is expected around the corner. “In 2025, I will move to the official team. That will mean different pressure,” he anticipated at the end of last season. “When we are in an official team, we have to fight for the top 3 in every race, if we can we have to fight for the championship, so we will try to do our best.”

“I know that with Pecco [Bagnaia]I will have a very strong opponent in the garage, he will be the main reference but I will try to do my best. The first thing will be to try to adapt to the new people, to the new team, the pre-season will be used for that, and obviously to understand the new bike.

So, should we bet on him for this championship? “I’ll tell you before Thailand. In pre-season you can see who the favorite will be… I hope my name will be there.”

The picture should therefore become clearer with the pre-season tests on the program in the first half of February, before diving into the competition in just over a month and a half.

With Rubén Carballo Rosa