MotoGP: Marc Marquez needed to feel 'important' to Honda before extending his contract

LIKE any elite athlete, Marc Marquez knows how to say all the right things to without giving too much away.

So when he does let a nugget of gold slip, it makes for a fascinating insight.

One such jewel arrived in the pre-Qatar MotoGP press conference.

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The winner four of the last five MotoGP world champions - the rider who looks poised to one day claim all of the sport’s records - needed to feel he was valued by Honda before signing his new contract.

Manufacturers aren’t always astute with such things.

Casey Stoner walked away from Ducati because he felt underappreciated. Valentino Rossi famously left Honda for Yamaha as much for a feeling of mutual respect as for the challenge of taking the latter back to the top.

“It was quite ... not easy. Because me and Honda, Honda and me... we were agreed, I was really happy with them,” Marquez said.

“(But) I was waiting a little bit to see how we started the pre-season.”

Marc Marquez celebrating the 2017 world champion win with his crew. Pic: MotoGPSource: Supplied

Marquez was one of the early dominoes to fall in what was expected to be a hectic year of contract talks, with virtually all of the top MotoGP seats up for grabs at the end of 2018.

Yamaha made the first move, signing young gun Maverick Vinales for a further two seasons.

Although KTM has long rumoured as a potential suitor for the 25-year-old, Marquez put pen to paper with Honda at the end of last month - but not before he gauged the vibe from both the company and this year’s bike.

Fresh from securing his sixth world championship title, Marquez revealed that he had not been very happy early in the 2017 season and was not enjoying riding the bike.

Watch ‘Marc Marquez: 2017 Unseen’, the new documentary showing behind the scenes of last year’s title win, after the Qatar MotoGP on Monday morning on FOX SPORTS 505.

In many ways, his two championship titles on the bounce in 2016-17 came despite his Honda machine, rather than because of it.

The performance characteristics of its engine has been a key bugbear since the sport’s adoption of a control electronics package, with progress hampered by rule changes minimising the amount of engine design changes the big factory teams can make in-season.

Marquez during testing in Qatar earlier this month. Pic: MotoGPSource: Supplied

Marquez and Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa worked hard during the 2017 preseason, during practice sessions and post-race tests trying to hone the chassis around the engine’s inherent character; how hard Marquez pushed every time he left pit lane highlighted by his astonishing number of crashes on the way to the title.

With the knowledge that he was out of contract at the end of 2018, this year’s preseason testing held an added importance.

“Finally I saw that the atmosphere was the correct one, the bike was working well, I feel happy,” he added.

Then came that nugget of insight.

“Especially, I feel important inside the Honda factory, and this is the most important.”

There it is. Marquez needed to feel he was important to Honda.

And make no mistake: he absolutely is.

Nobody rides the RC213V faster more consistently than Marquez. Erase his imprint from MotoGP’s history books and it leaves gaping holes in Honda’s current era of success.

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