Wouldn’t it have been wonderful if Marc Márquez had a motorcycle helmet camera to film all of the breathtaking moments from his own point of view? We think it would’ve been awesome as hell. And because we consider Márquez to be a legend, today’s article will be all about him – his life, career, and the amazing achievements he had as a motorcycle racer.
Biographic facts
Marc Márquez Alentà, by his full name, was born in Cervera, Spain, on the 17th of February 1993. He is currently part of the Repsol Honda Team, and he gets a lot of praise from fans of the said team and even fans of the teams who compete against his. He got his first world championship in 2010 when he wasn’t even 20 years old.
But how exactly did he become so good at what he’s doing? How did he manage to impress the whole world of motorcycle racing at such a fragile age when most of us barely manage to make a good impression at our first job interview? Call it destiny or genetics or whatever you want, but he received a gift from his parents, Julià and Roser, at the age of 4 years.
Can you guess what it was? That’s right, it was a motorbike. His parents most probably couldn’t even imagine how this gift would end up shaping their son’s future. He soon took to liking the motorbike so much that he barely got off it. Just five years later, in 2002, he would go from enduro races straight to circuits.
He finished his first tarmac race in third place in the Catalonia Championship. Barely one year later, in 2003, he became part of the ProCurve team and scored his first junior championship – the Open Racc 50. The next year after that he debuted on a Honda CBR 125 with the Racc-Impala team and scored second place, just a little behind Pol Espargaró.
The young legend
In 2005, he participated in the same race as before. However, this time he won. He was proclaimed 125cc champion at the Catalunya Championship of that year. Needless to say, he was quickly making a name for himself. Very few people manage to get such good results from an early age and hold up to this point during their lives.
When 2006 came along, he set his goals even higher. This time he wasn’t taking any second places… just second trophies. Yes, he took the championship once again so now he was considered a double champion. Because of this achievement, the jump to the Spanish Speed Championship (CEV) for 2007 was practically inevitable.
This time he was riding a KTM 125 RRF. This new motorbike would prove quite useful to him, as it brought his first victory in his record book at the Jerez Circuit. Although he finished the entire tournament in 9th place, he was up against some of the most promising stars of the Spanish scene. So you can imagine the competition was fierce.
2008 would arrive with Marc’s world debut. He became the youngest Spanish citizen to grace a Grand Prix world podium that year. It was his first podium in the British Grand Prix and he was so excited that you could see the joy just by looking in his eyes.
The legacy continues
As we mentioned earlier, he won his first world championship in 2010. This happened in Estoril with an impressive 310 points, 10 victories, and 8 fast laps. For some reason, he sat out of the 2011 international races, but he came back in 2012 with a vengeance, winning the Moto2 title in Australia and climbing on the podium in Phillip Island.
He would then go on to earn the MotoGP World Championships in 2013, 2014, 2016 and onwards until 2019. He became the youngest to win the title overall and the first rider to win the title in his first season since Kenny Roberts in 1978. On top of that, he didn’t just win the titles, he won them with style. Let’s go through some examples.
In 2014, he successfully defended his title with 10 consecutive victories and three rounds to spare. On top of that, in that same year, his brother Alex won his first-ever Moto3 title, which brought his family much joy. In 2016, after learning from his mistakes from the previous year, he won the title yet again with 5 victories, 298 points, and 4 fast laps.
In 2017, his championship celebration was even bigger. For his photo, he took out a giant six-sided dice and held it over his head. And finally, in 2019, he took with him a giant 8-ball like the one you find on billiards tables. This signified his 8 total World Championship wins. Obviously, he doesn’t shy away from flaunting his number of victories.
Let’s sum it all up
Now that we know the most important moments of his legendary career, let’s look back at his overall statistics. At just 27 years of age, his current net worth is estimated to be around 25 million dollars. As of March 2020, he is still the youngest rider to ever win his first World Championship Title in the Premier Class.
Not only that, but he is also recognized as being the youngest competitor to win 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 titles in the Premier Class respectively. No one else up until this very day has toppled him in any of these categories. If that’s not impressive, we don’t know what is. He also holds the record of the most races won in a single season in the Premier Class: 13, to be more exact.
At 21 years of age, he also received the recognition of being the youngest motorcycle racer to take 12 Pole positions in a single season in Premier Class. And he is currently the only rider to take a total of 13 impressive Pole positions in one single season of the Premier Class. A premier racer for the Premier Class, wouldn’t you agree?
Oh, and it doesn’t stop there. He became the youngest rider to win 12 races in a single season when he was 21 years old. He later also became the youngest rider to win 4-10 races in a row in the Premier Class. And no, we’re still not done. He’s the youngest rider to win a total of 11 races in a single season of the Premier Class.
In 2013, during the Germany-USA-Indianapolis-Czech Republic Premier Class, he won the distinction of being the first-ever rookie to win 4 back-to-back races in that class. The most wins he got as a rookie in the Premier Class sum up to only 6, but his later achievements, as you just saw, compensate for that quite well.
At this point, you probably get it. We could stay up all night enumerating his achievements and there would still be things to say about this already-legendary young man. Where’s the Guinness World Record Book when you need it?
Closing thoughts
There are far too many things that you can say about Marc Márquez. Few people show so much talent and put so much hard work in what they do. Can you think of another motor racer who has this many achievements under their belt? Because if you were to ask us that off the top of our heads, we wouldn’t be able to think of one either.
Márquez’s story will probably remain one of the most inspirational ones in the entire sporting world. When you think that he managed to do all of these things at just 27 years of age, you start wondering where you’re going with your life. Most of us can’t even afford to buy their own apartment at that age.
Well, maybe future generations can look at this man’s achievements and learn a valuable lesson from them: always put hard work in what you love and never give up, no matter how hard it might be. These are things that we should all aspire to achieve, and maybe one day more people can look back at their lives and be proud of what they have done.
