Rating the Riders: Marc Marquez

Marc Márquez, Repsol Honda, 3rd, 242 points – Score: 8

This was Marc Márquez’s worst season in Grand Prix racing since 2009. From 2010 onwards, in 125s, Moto2, or MotoGP, Márquez has finished as either champion or runner-up.

Not only did Márquez finish outside the top two for the first time since finishing eighth in 2009, but this was also his worst championship points total since that year. You could say this was a very bad year for the Repsol Honda rider.

Yet it was also undoubtedly the year in which Márquez learned the most in his Grand Prix career. This was the year in which Márquez changed his approach, and gained a deeper understanding of how to win a championship, rather than just races.

Márquez crashed out six times in 2015, fully one third of the races. Four of those crashes were entirely on his own, and completely his own fault.

The first, at Argentina, was also his own fault, though it came as a result of him misjudging his line after being passed by Valentino Rossi. The last crash, at Sepang, was also caused by Rossi, but this time, Márquez was not to blame.

Those crashes helped teach Márquez the value of third and fourth place, he said at the end of the year. Earlier in his MotoGP career, he was greedy for wins, his unbelievable physical skills allowing him to skate the razor’s edge of disaster and come out on top nine times out of ten.

The 2015 Honda RC213V – developed largely under his direction – made that impossible. An excessively aggressive engine and poor electronics meant the rear wheel spun-up out of corners until it gripped, at which point it started to wheelie.

Going into the corners, the engine braking was unpredictable, meaning all of the Honda riders had to rely much more on the front brake than before. Front tires overheated, overloaded, and washed out.

The full extent of the problem became apparent in the first race at Qatar. Márquez missed the first corner when the bike didn’t stop as he expected, brutally sideswiped Alvaro Bautista when he came back onto the track, then fought his way forward from the back of the grid up to fifth spot.

Victory at Austin, a track he had dominated, put him back in contention, getting him within five points of championship leader Valentino Rossi. But the crash in Argentina left him 30 points down, and a big hill to climb.

Second place in Jerez clawed back a few points, but at Le Mans, the RC213V was struggling again. Dani Pedrosa, Scott Redding, and Cal Crutchlow all crashed out, and Márquez spent all race wresting the Honda around, barely managing to hold off Andrea Iannone, who had badly injured his shoulder just a few days earlier.

Márquez saw his championship slipping away, and tried to force the at Mugello and Barcelona, aiming for the win. Both times, he crashed out, the front letting go, increasing the pressure on Márquez even further.

The more he tried to win, the more he crashed. The more he crashed, the further away any chance of a title slipped. That is the point at which Márquez understood that a season lasts eighteen races.

The turnaround started for Márquez after Barcelona, when he switched back to the chassis he had used in 2014. The main difference with the 2015 frame was in its stiffness, especially around the steering head.

That frame, in combination with a swing arm introduced at Jerez, and a number of software updates, took the worst of the edge off RC213V’s misbehavior, and made it manageable once more, for Márquez at least.

He went from three crashes and a win in the first six races to three wins, two seconds and a single crash in the next six.

The end of Márquez’s season was overshadowed by his clash with Valentino Rossi at Sepang. It started with his brilliant victory at Phillip Island, a race in which he was forced to manage an overheating front tire, then put in one of the most remarkable final laps in history to pass Andrea Iannone and Jorge Lorenzo.

That feat of tire management was what set Rossi’s accusations off, yet managing an overheating tire is not that uncommon an occurrence. As long as you don’t push too hard for too long, the tire will come back, as Bradley Smith explained to us earlier in the year.

But Rossi saw a conspiracy, attacked Márquez in Sepang, and Márquez’s ego drove him into direct conflict with the Italian.

From that point on, Márquez was hiding nothing. For him to do anything other than beat Lorenzo would be interpreted as collusion with his fellow Spaniard, despite the fact that if you had to choose a rider Márquez was most likely to want to beat, and least likely to help, Lorenzo’s name would be at the very top of that list.

Did Márquez let Lorenzo past at Sepang? It looked to a neutral observer like Lorenzo was pretty much unstoppable that weekend, Dani Pedrosa the only man better than him, and Márquez was never going to stand a chance.

Why did Márquez get so involved with Rossi? While you could also ask that question the other way around – Rossi passed Márquez just as often as Márquez passed Rossi – Race Direction felt that Márquez had raced Rossi harder than was sensible.

He had done nothing they could sanction him for, but they certainly weren’t happy with his behavior on the track. But it was Rossi who eventually lost his cool, and caused the Spaniard to crash.

The race at Valencia made things infinitely worse for Márquez. Rossi needed Márquez’s help if he was to win the championship; the title was only possible if both Repsol Hondas finished ahead of Lorenzo.

Márquez’s game plan was clear: his Honda could not match the Yamaha round most of the track, so he had to play the waiting game, exactly as he had in Indianapolis. This, too, was a new tactic Márquez had learned, having discovered to his cost that passing too early left him vulnerable to counterattack.

The final corner was particularly troublesome for the Honda, Lorenzo leaving Márquez for dead onto the main straight every lap. Turn 6 was Márquez’s only real opportunity, but it meant waiting until the final lap.

Unfortunately for Márquez, his teammate appeared, and the two tangled, opening just enough of a gap to Lorenzo to make it almost impossible for Márquez to make a pass safely and cleanly.

Did Márquez really help Lorenzo? Only Márquez knows. His explanation for how he approached the race is plausible, but his problem is that the case for the prosecution is just as plausible. The race data and Márquez behavior in the race do not point clearly in one direction or the other.

The situation was summed up by well by Neil Hodgson. “You could see that Márquez was on the limit for the whole race, but he could have passed Lorenzo several times at Turn 6.”

Hodgson believes Márquez let Lorenzo win, but there are an equal number of ex-racers who believe the opposite. They, like the fans, simply have to choose which side they wish to believe.

The abuse and opprobrium heaped upon Márquez after the race, with Valentino Rossi leading the charge, brought a tough year to the toughest ending possible. If champions are forged in the white heat of competition, then 2015 could well be the making of Márquez, or it could see him come apart.

It was a year in which he grew enormously, most of all as a person. How he handles that, how he integrates that into his personality, will only become apparent in 2016.