For many, Marc Marquez is considered the best motorcycle racer of all-time. The Catalan has won everything, and ruled MotoGP with a bustling and ever-watchable blend of tire-sliding bravado and sheer balls-out speed six times; from his emphatic debut season as a 20-year-old in 2013 until 2019. It was during 2020 that a crash and broken right arm led to a sustained injury nightmare and then declining competitiveness of HRC meant he took the brave move of ending his Honda contract prematurely for a year-old Ducati machine in the satellite Gresini squad. He won three times in 2024 to revive his prospects at the age of 31 and earned a two-year deal with the factory Ducati Lenovo team next to Pecco Bagnaia. Marquez’s thirst for victory has created memorable clashes, close duels with the likes of Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo, close calls with a slew of miraculous ‘saves’ while propped at ridiculous lean angles, and eternal admiration. His ‘MO’ of turning the motorcycle with the front tire stressed under braking and testing new limits of adhesion and physics helped propel MotoGP into a new era where some of the antics were more akin to extreme sports. Marquez would comb the threshold of his bike and tires’ grip during practice, fall and then have his performance reference. It has been a risky approach that necessitated plenty of time with surgeons, optical specialists and medical experts but it has also created the legend. Hailing from western Catalunya but based just north of Madrid, Marc is the reference in MotoGP and, for some, will always be so.