MotoGP superstar Marc Marquez has developed his own strategy to help him sleep better after serious riding mistakes
The crash at the MotoGP race in Austin (USA) was Marc Marquez’s only major blunder so far this season. Apart from the faux pas in Texas, Marquez has not made any major mistakes this year and has won all the other races. But how does the World Championship leader deal with mishaps and setbacks?
“Of course, I think about the mistakes and how I can avoid repeating them. But in my career, I’ve learned that sooner or later you repeat the same mistake. And I made that mistake in Austin in 2019,” Marquez reflected in an interview with his Spanish colleagues at Motorsport.com.
In the 2019 MotoGP season, in which he was by far the best rider, Marquez crashed on his home track in Austin. “I repeated the mistake in another corner – the same mistake, with a two-and-a-half-second lead,” he notes.
“It’s a big mistake, yes. But ultimately, I understood that Monday is the next day and the next race is in two weeks,” said Marquez, seemingly unfazed by the mistake he made.
But why is the 32-year-old so good at putting such mishaps behind him? The MotoGP superstar has come up with his own strategy for coping with setbacks, which helps him put them into perspective.
“I always think the same thing when I make mistakes like that and can’t sleep well the following night: I wonder what it must be like when someone is driving a car, for example, and causes an accident because of a stupid mistake and loses a friend or a family member. How must that person sleep?” said Marquez.
Thinking about this scenario pushes the events in MotoGP into the background. “I mean, you’ve killed someone. You don’t want to kill anyone, but you’ve killed a family member or a friend. That’s why I always think about it,” Marquez reveals his strategy and emphasizes how trivial mistakes in MotoGP are compared to the scenario he imagines: “In two weeks, we have the next race.”
