How pressure management can win the MotoGP title

If he was riding, would Marc Marquez be showing the same levels of inconsistency as the majority of MotoGP frontrunners this season? It is the million-dollar question being asked by fans all over the world. Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing the answer until the defending champion returns from injury and, currently, there is no indication of when that will be.

By the time Marquez does come back, it could be that somebody has unlocked the secret of the 2020 rear Michelin tyre, which seems to be taking unanimous blame for all the set-up uncertainty. But last week, in the days leading up to the Catalan Grand Prix, the Honda rider gave an extensive interview in which he offered an alternative point of view on the matter, and delivered an opinion that didn't go down too well with his rivals.

"It looks like nobody wants to win [this championship]," said Marquez. "It is difficult to understand, but if you are a rider you can understand it a little bit. One thing is to be a rider that if you win, it will be something incredible, but when you are the rider that needs to win then something changes and you have many more doubts because you don't know if you should attack, if you should defend.

"You know when you are the rider that is coming from second place, third place, fourth place and you have something in front of you, you have nothing to lose, you just attack and then you ride with more confidence because you don't have anything to lose. But when you are at the top and you have to win, this is when the doubts start to be in your mind, in your body, and it becomes more difficult."

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The suggestion Marquez is making is that main contributory factor to the inconsistency being shown across the grid is not tyres, but pressure; the kind of pressure that none of the other riders were experiencing when the multiple world champion was out there with them and Marquez, the champion in six of the last seven years, was carrying the obligation to win.

"The same thing is happening with Marc that happened with Valentino [Rossi] during his best years," a source inside the factory Yamaha garage told Autosport. "Everybody else goes out thinking, 'How am I going to beat Rossi?' If, under certain circumstances, they managed it at one race, then great - but there was no pressure on them to do it."

The problem is that Marquez has not featured since the opening round of the season and, since then, the pressure to win has been shared between riders unaccustomed to dealing with it.

Speaking after he took his third win of the season and reclaimed the championship lead at the Catalan GP, Fabio Quartararo insinuated that his own lack of form since those back-to-back wins at the season-opening races was starting to get to him.

"I suffered a lot for the last months," he admitted. "I haven't been on the podium since Jerez and it was not easy for my brain, so I want to say thank you to my family and all the people who support me."

"If they view it as a challenge, they will see the objective as an opportunity to use the resources available to them to achieve it. If, on the other hand, they see it as a threat, they will interpret the objective as a necessity and that in itself creates load" Pep Font

Mick Doohan - currently at his home in Monaco awaiting an easing on coronavirus-related entry restrictions in his native Australia - knows all about the pressure of dealing with the 'favourite' tag, having done so throughout a period of 500cc dominance that spanned from 1994 to 1998, when he claimed all five of his premier-class titles.

"I agree completely with Marc that there is more pressure when you're out at the front," he tells Autosport. "The leader has everything to lose and it is tough to deal with that pressure. A lot of the guys fighting for the title this season have never been in that position before.

"[Andrea] Dovizioso has, but not the others. Until you have the self-confidence to cope with that pressure, it is difficult. In the end you have to focus on yourself and try to shut everything else out. But the more you try to free your mind from that pressure, the more it comes back. Marc is a master in this situation, but the others are not."

It seems crazy to think that the current number one not being on the grid could have a counterproductive effect on the competitiveness of his rivals, but there seems to be little other explanation.

Pep Font is a high-performance psychology specialist who has been working with top level sports professionals for a number of years, including MotoGP riders. According to Font, who works out of the Centre of High Performance (Centro de Alto Rendimiento - CAR) in Sant Cugat, Barcelona, there is some science behind Marquez's theory.

"What is clear is that the absence of the reference [Marquez] can create a psychological effect, although it needn't be the same in each person," he explains.

"These differences depend on the cognitive evaluation made by the individual. Behaviours will vary depending on whether said individual - in this case riders fighting for the MotoGP world title - view their objective as a challenge or a threat.

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"If they view it as a challenge, they will see the objective as an opportunity to use the resources available to them to achieve it. If, on the other hand, they see it as a threat, they will interpret the objective as a necessity and that in itself creates load.

"From the outside, both Dovizioso and [Maverick] Vinales seem to be a long way from viewing this moment as a challenge and seem more inclined to be taking it as a threat. In any discipline, consistency in performance requires control of the situation and - at the moment - it looks like nobody has control."

At Le Mans next week, the contenders to succeed Marquez as MotoGP world champion will come face to face again, with 31 points covering standings leader Quartararo and his fifth-placed Petronas SRT team-mate Franco Morbidelli - compared to the 44-point cushion the HRC rider had after eight rounds last year.

Now that we know how certain riders are being affected by his absence, soon we will find out how they cope with his return...