The Marquez self-preservation that fulfilled a COTA MotoGP “dream”

Marc Marquez’s record on American circuits in MotoGP is truly something to behold. Since the 2012 Indianapolis Grand Prix when he was in Moto2, the eight-time grand prix world champion has won on US soil on every single occasion bar once – when he crashed out of a commanding lead at the Circuit of the Americas in 2019.

That would turn out to be MotoGP’s last visit to the Austin-based venue for 30 months, as the horror wrought by the COVID pandemic meant it wasn’t until last weekend that the series made its US return.

Though the world has changed much since the 2019 Americas GP, the expectation of a Marquez victory around the 20-turn, anti-clockwise COTA track certainly hadn't. But while back in 2019, COTA success appeared to be something of a formality to add to his extensive wins list, the expectation was more heightened this year.

Marquez’s physical limitations with his right shoulder – a legacy of the career-threatening arm break he suffered at Jerez last July – are well-documented, and it’s something that he admitted after his victory at COTA on Sunday means he is missing “the special feeling” on the Honda he used to have. Specifically, he can’t force the bike through right-hand corners in the way he used to. He simply understeers if he tries, while sapping energy, and can’t slide the bike in the way he used to.

Part of that is also down to the current Honda lacking in rear traction, though as the season has progressed and Marquez’s physical condition has improved he’s been able to tame the RC213V better than its other riders.

Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

But with all of that burden, Marquez knew coming into the GP of Americas weekend that it was an opportunity that for now has seldom come forth.

“I am happy, really happy, because it has been a very hard season,” Marquez said after romping to his second win of the season by 4.6 seconds from championship leader Fabio Quartararo.

“Sometimes I crash and I don’t understand, and sometimes I am fast and I don’t understand, and sometimes I am slow and I don’t understand. But this victory I was looking for because I know that maybe it is the last circuit with good conditions to win at.”

"The key point was [Saturday], keeping calm and saving energy, and today showing and giving everything" Marc Marquez

Big results have slipped away from Marquez in 2021. He was comfortably leading the flag-to-flag French GP when he crashed. He dropped the bike in the wet final laps of the Austrian GP in a race he could have won, and his British GP podium hopes were dashed by a lap one incident with Pramac’s Jorge Martin. Add to that two more DNFs at Barcelona and Mugello, and it’s no wonder he’s “never felt these kinds of feelings in my career” amidst a “really strange and hard season”.

Despite the expectation and the circumstances of the circuit layout aligning Marquez into the favourite position, victory was far from guaranteed as the weekend started. On Friday he was fastest in the wet FP1 and dry FP2 but admitted, when asked by Autosport if he was feeling more comfortable, that his form was “strange” because he didn’t think he was riding very well. On Saturday the speed was still present, but the feeling was absent.

He still managed to qualify on the front row for the first time since the 2020 Spanish GP and showed some strong used tyre pace in FP4. But it was how he managed that Saturday which would ultimately prove crucial to his success in the race.

Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

COTA’s track layout is physical at the best of times. But the advent of much more vicious bumps than those seen at MotoGP’s last visit – particularly through the first two sectors – were making life tough for the riders, and more so for Marquez. Given his feeling on the bike wasn’t great on Saturday, Marquez says he didn’t force the issue because it would only sap him of the energy he needed for the race – and in his current physical state, could ill-afford to expend for little reward on Saturday.

“The key point of this weekend was [Saturday], I felt also not so good,” he explained when asked by Autosport how he turned around his form for Sunday. “The speed was there but the feeling was not there with the track, with the bumps, and I didn’t push. Because if you don’t feel well and you push, then you are using a lot the muscles and the physical condition.

“Yesterday, I pushed only for a single lap and today in the warm-up is where I felt better, and I was pushing more. The key point was yesterday, keeping calm and saving energy, and today showing and giving everything.”

Marquez had a clear plan in his mind for the race: get the holeshot, control the pace in the first laps and then twist the screw to build up a buffer with which he could manage his physical condition to the end.

As Iron Maiden fans will be aware of, in Japanese there is a term known as ‘senjutsu’. It loosely translates to ‘tactics and strategy’, but can also mean skill, technique, trick, resource, and magic. Marquez’s victory charge at COTA, then, was very much a mastery of senjutsu.

He nailed his launch from third to take the lead into Turn 1, and for the first five laps kept the pace around the high 2m04s/low 2m05s bracket. This meant the chasing Yamaha of Quartararo was just a few tenths adrift.

On lap six of 20, Marquez enacted stage three of his plan and began to up the pace. He fired in a 2m04.629s while Quartararo – having to fend off Pramac’s Jorge Martin – lapped in 2m05.126s. Then on the following tour Marquez fired in the fastest lap of the race with a 2m04.368s, versus 2m04.988s for Quartararo.

In the space of two tours, Marquez’s lead went from 0.465s over Quartararo to 1.572s, and would continue to climb to 4.679s by the chequered flag.

Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

“It was a perfect race, the one that I dreamed of last night,” Marquez beamed after the race. “It is true that from the beginning my plan was to try to lead the race from the beginning because the first laps were my weak points and then I tried to slow the race from the first four or five laps.

“Then when I felt OK, I just pushed. But it was one shot, strong, from one lap to another one, half a second faster and this was one of the main reasons to be able to open a gap.”

Marquez stage-managed the Grand Prix of the Americas in a way that, from the outside, looked very much as if the ‘old’ six-time MotoGP world champion was back. The reality is his seventh COTA win was far more calculated because of the limitations of his body

Marquez later explained that he knew he could stretch the race, because Quartararo wouldn’t do anything reckless to jeopardise the championship lead he ultimately swelled to 52 points - giving the Yamaha rider his first match point in the title race heading to Misano at the end of October. However, Quartararo said he did try and run Marquez’s pace – but more because he was coming under attack from Martin and Suzuki’s Alex Rins in the early laps.

At the front, Marquez had gleaned some ideas from poleman Francesco Bagnaia on the Ducati to improve his pace through the first sector. But his demolition job wasn’t without its issues.

“It is so difficult, especially for the bumps,” he said of leading a race with a big margin. “The problem is that when you slow down a bit, the bike is shaking even more and on the last lap I was looking stupid because I was riding slow, but the bike was shaking a lot, so I said, ‘what is going on here?’

“It is especially difficult to keep focused, with three laps to go I nearly crashed at Turn 6, I touched the inside kerb and I nearly lost the front.”

Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Marquez stage-managed the Grand Prix of the Americas in a way that, from the outside, looked very much as if the ‘old’ six-time MotoGP world champion was back. The reality is his seventh COTA win was far more calculated because of the limitations of his body.

He’ll likely have one final decent crack at a win in 2021 at the season finale at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit near Valencia, another anti-clockwise track.

However, if COTA does prove to be the final success of a heroic comeback season, it’s a strong note for Marquez to end on – not least because it points to a future where, once he properly figures out how to approach his racing with his physical limitations, he can be just as devastatingly fast as he used to be.

Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images