MotoGP – Why does Marquez crash so much?

Bruno Gomes

November 26, 2018

Spanish talent Marc Marquez is, without a doubt, one of the greatest talents the world of motorcycle racing has ever seen, and at just 25 years of age the Repsol Honda rider continues to amaze the fans and all those that follow MotoGP with his riding style.

Aggressive, sometimes a bit too much, which has already granted him a few penalties during race weekends, Marquez his known for never backing down from a challenge, and that leads to crashes.

The MotoGP champion had his record year in 2017 with a total of 27 crashes along the season, but he ended up champion anyway. For this season, the Honda rider wanted to lower that statistic, and he did, in fact, manage to crash less than the year before, but still crashed 23 times. A very high number.

Fans wonder why such a talented rider crashes so much, and speaking to the media present at the post-season IRTA test session in Valencia, a week ago, Marquez explained why he suffers so many crashes compared to most of his rivals

“There are people that ask ‘Why does he crash so much?’, and I say that if I were on a sofa I wouldn’t crash but then I wouldn’t be Marc Marquez, I wouldn’t win and I wouldn’t risk so much. We always have to go with the front medium or hard tyre, when the other opt for the medium or soft, and so we take a bigger risk”, said Marquez.

So why do Marquez and the Repsol Honda team need to opt for the medium or hard front tyre?

The explanation is found on the chassis setup.

According to Marquez, one of the main focus for the factory Honda team next season, a point they’ve already started to work on in Valencia, is to find a better base chassis setup that makes the RC213V prototype easier to ride.

Yes, Marc Marquez riding style is almost perfect for the sometimes nervous RC213V, but he still needs to push the front tyre over the limit because the Japanese bike needs to have the front tyre fully loaded for the riders to get the perfect feeling during the corner. When he tries to find that important front end feeling, that’s when the crashes happen.

During Winter break Honda Racing Corporation will surely try to address this problem, and for that, the arrival of Jorge Lorenzo to the team might prove to be very useful. While Marquez has a very aggressive riding style, his new teammate, who just arrived from the factory Ducati, is known for his smooth riding style which he perfected during his years racing for Yamaha.

Lorenzo makes the best of the bike during mid-corner, where he can hit higher cornering speeds than his rivals. But for that, he’ll need to help Honda to find a different chassis setup for 2019, and his knowledge on the Yamaha and Ducati factory prototypes might prove very useful to domesticate the somewhat wild Honda bike.