When Marc Marquez had his serious accident in 2020, Pedrosa was already out of Honda and, now retired, working for KTM, the rival manufacturer. The #26 had known the one who had been his teammate for six years when he was on the crest of the wave, with five world championships won without leaving nothing but crumbs to his opponents.
After his glory years, Marquez had to fight a serious arm injury, accompanied by the decline in performance of the bikes in Tokyo, an ordeal that Pedrosa did not experience so closely. Although he knows Marc well, Dani was struck by how in less than a year he went from his worst moment, when he thought about retiring, to securing a place in the official Ducati team.
“Marquez surprised me in Assen because, in his statements on Thursday, he said he was going to retire. But that feeling had never come to me. Yes, I understood that he couldn’t continue in that situation with Honda. But it’s normal to understand that any rider who wants to be a winner can’t stay in such a negative situation for many years, as could happen now to Joan Mir,” Pedrosa explained in the MotoGP Podcast “Por Orejas,” which will be published this week on Motorsport.com’s platforms and YouTube channel in Spanish.
Dani Pedrosa believes that Marc Márquez has gone above and beyond to get the winning bike
Foto de: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
“I was surprised when he said he was thinking about retiring. In any case, his ability to turn the situation around is impressive. Because there is Jorge Martin, who did everything and more to deserve the factory Ducati. I want to think he couldn’t have done more,” he said, referring to the Spaniard.
“So, I don’t know what weapons Marc used or what the strategies are behind them. I don’t know, but in any case he went from the bike he had with the official Honda to the most competitive official bike in a very short time. And that’s difficult,” Dani explains.
In a certain sense, with this maneuver Márquez reminded us a little of Valentino Rossi, capable of managing the market and brands in his favor: “I don’t know if I understood the question, but I think that in Valentino’s case his moves have always been made a little more with the heart, with a little more love, with a little more affection, with the brand, with the harmony, with what he was doing. I think Marc Márquez is making this change, going beyond everything, doing whatever is necessary for him,” said the three-time world champion.
“Marc said ‘I have to be in that place’, so you can consider it a positive thing. This guy wants to win at all costs and it’s a credit to him what he’s doing. In the same way, you can think the opposite. I don’t know what the Red Bull issue (Marc’s personal sponsor, ed.) will be like, because we’ve already seen that the Honda issue is now behind us. There are many things in between that have accompanied you during this period, the mechanics and everything else. He preferred to have the winning bike rather than continue with all these relationships that he’s had for so many years. There are those who can see it as a positive thing and those who see it more as a negative thing”, continued the #26.
“Referring to the question about the comparison with Valentino, those changes he has made, I think Vale has always made them more for what he felt in his heart than to choose the winning bike at all costs,” said the Catalan.
