Marc Marquez admitted he had been mentally preparing himself for the day his relentless winning streak in MotoGP would finally break.
The factory Ducati rider’s run of nearly 100 days unbeaten ended at the Catalan Grand Prix, where he crossed the line 1.7s behind younger brother Alex Marquez.
It brought to a close a remarkable stretch of dominance: seven straight European double wins after a flat outing at Silverstone in May, plus Saturday’s Sprint at Barcelona when Alex crashed from the lead — a run of 15 consecutive victories, echoing Marc’s 2019 Honda heyday.
But on Sunday, Marc had no answer for his brother’s pace. The streak was over.
Speaking in the press conference, the six-time MotoGP champion revealed he’d been bracing himself for this very moment, with Ducati boss Davide Tardozzi even warning him on the morning of the race.
“I was telling you [the media] since Austria or since the summer break that there will be one day that somebody will be faster than me, and I will need to accept that,” he said. “So I kept saying that sentence in my head.”
“Today, Davide Tardozzi told me, ‘maybe today is the day [your streak will end]. You will try, you need to try [but it is possible].’”
“I tried. You see at Turn 10, I went in [and had a big moment]. And then I had a flashback of Alex from Saturday. I will always try, but sometimes you try and you can’t. Today with Alex, last year with Pecco [Bagnaia]. That’s how it is.”
“But for me, the most important [thing] for a championship is, at a track where I’m struggling, I’m still close to the fastest guys.”
Marc admitted he knew beating Alex in Barcelona would be a tall order.
“I already expect on Thursday that Alex will be the rider to beat,” he said. “He is second in the championship and he is riding in a very good way – especially here in Catalunya: he won in Moto3, he won two times in Moto2 and now he won in MotoGP.”
“I tried everything, I was on the limit in the last laps. Five laps from the finish, I made a mistake at Turn 7, another mistake at Turn 10, and I gave up. It’s true that Alex was faster than us today.”
Alex’s win trimmed Marc’s title lead to 182 points, keeping the championship alive until at least Japan on September 28. Had the gap grown to 185, Marc could have sealed the crown at Misano this weekend.
“Still seven races to go,” he said. “My target is to try to keep the same mentality. Don’t exaggerate, try to control the limits, try to control the bike, try to control all the points.”
“Today, it’s true that maybe I was able to go all in, but it was not time to do it. It’s time to keep going, keep the same concentration. I was happy because I said on Thursday that there will be a day where I need to accept that somebody is faster than me, and little brother was faster than me this weekend.”
