Marc Marquez offers candid admission about MotoGP career: “I don’t know how I did it”

Marc Marquez feels there is something about his earlier career that he “cannot explain” in 2026.

By now, Marquez is cemented as one of MotoGP’s all-time greats with nine world titles and over 100 grand prix wins to his name.

The success has come over the course of a winning career that started at Mugello 16 years ago and despite a pause in the success between 2021 and 2024, over 1,000 days without a win as he dealt with injuries and an underperforming Honda.

Looking back to the time before the injuries, even Marquez himself is at a loss now to explain his ability to stay motivated year after year as he took eight titles in 10 seasons between 2010 and 2019.

“For me, the most important thing is keep doing,” Marc Marquez told MotoGP.com.

“Win one time, the 22 MotoGP riders have the talent to do it.

“But to do many years in a row and keep going and keep with the same motivation, this is something that I don’t know how I did [it], I cannot answer. 

“Maybe because I was 20, I was 21, and the energy was different, but right now I cannot explain.”

16 years after Marquez’s first grand prix title and he’s looking for his 10th. At Phillip Island this weekend he will head into the Sprint two points behind Aprilia’s Jorge Martin.

The longevity of Marquez’s success, and his career, is about his mental approach to his sport, he says, especially post-2020 and the injury problems that started then and which, in some cases, still affect him now.

“I felt like a superhero before 2020,” Marquez said.

“Then 2020 showed me, and I learnt, that we are humans and one day we are here, and another day we can be a different person. 

“In the right shoulder I had seven different surgeries and I feel it. It’s what it is. 

“A rider decides where is the line. Now I start to evaluate more the risk, and those risks are those injuries, those crashes. 

“I’m here and I’m competing because at the moment I didn’t give up on the mental side. I achieved already a lot but still I feel competitive, and I know that if I won I can keep being competitive for some years. 

“But we are not in a sport like football or tennis, that they are doing their 100 per cent but the risk is much lower. 

“So, you need to evaluate many things in MotoGP before your retirement. 

“It’s closer than yesterday, yes, but when? I don’t know.”