No normal person could achieve what Marc Marquez has

Formula 1 star Fernando Alonso has hailed Marc Marquez after his countryman won the 2025 MotoGP title, saying only a few people in sport can achieve what he did.

Marquez dominated the championship this year after stepping up to a factory Ducati seat, completing an incredible comeback from the 2020 Jerez accident that left him with a career-altering shoulder injury.

Like Alonso, Marquez endured a prolonged lean period in his career, as multiple operations, a lengthy rehabilitation process and increasingly uncompetitive Honda bike left him struggling for results and questioning his future in MotoGP.

But while Alonso left F1 altogether after his miserable stint with McLaren in the mid-2010s to explore other categories, Marquez put aside any retirement thoughts and made a bold decision to join Gresini on a satellite bike in 2024.

This move paid off almost instantaneously, allowing him to return to winning ways and secure a factory ride with MotoGP’s dominant marque for 2025. 

Speaking on a new documentary produced by Spanish broadcaster DAZN, Alonso praised Marquez’s resilience and mentality as he claimed his seventh MotoGP title.

“It’s exceptional because, apart from the natural talent you may have as a driver, you have to have extraordinary mental strength and discipline,” said the two-time F1 champion. 

“There’s no such thing as a ‘normal’ person, which is why I say it’s exceptional to go five years without winning a title and not lose an ounce of determination, competitive spirit, and, of course, talent. And always wanting to improve. 

“Improving on a world champion is very difficult. Getting it into your head and having the discipline to improve every day to improve on that version, I think only a few people can do that. That’s why I think what Marc has done this year is within the reach of very few.”

Alonso won back-to-back F1 titles with Renault in 2005-06, bringing an end to Michael Schumacher’s incredible run at Ferrari. 

He later joined the Scuderia himself in 2010, coming close to winning the title on a number of occasions.

However, for the most part, he had to battle with uncompetitive machinery, as McLaren’s disastrous engine partnership with Honda from 2015 forced him to take a sabbatical from F1.

The Spaniard returned to grand prix racing in 2021 with Alpine and switched to Aston Martin two years later, but has not had a car capable of fighting at the front since his comeback.

Despite being considered as one of the greatest drivers of his generation, he has now gone 12 years without winning a grand prix.

In light of Marquez’s own struggles with Honda in the early 2010s, Alonso explained how difficult it is for elite racers to remain motivated when they no longer have the machinery to fight for wins.

«When you haven’t won in a while or you don’t have the right equipment, whether it’s the motorcycle or, in my case these past few years, not having the car to be at the top, you need to have conversations with yourself many times at home,” he said.

“You have to get up every day, go to the gym, get on your bike, train… it’s a lot of hours on your own. You get on your bike, you go for three hours, and you talk to yourself for many hours. 

“You have to shower, look at your scars, in my case the bruises, you have to watch videos from the past and many other things, and talk to yourself to remind yourself that you are still that person, not the person who right now can’t get the results.»

Marc Marquez, Ducati Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images

Marquez missed the remainder of the 2020 season after his injury and was sidelined for large parts of 2021 and 2022 as complications persisted. He suffered another setback in 2023 when he broke his thumb at the Portuguese Grand Prix.

Recalling the issues he himself experienced upon his F1 comeback, Alonso said he understands how tough it has been for Marquez to become a world champion again.

“When I returned to F1, during the first tests I thought I was performing as well as I had two years earlier, but the stopwatch didn’t say so; it said I was a few tenths slower,” said the 44-year-old.

“And I didn’t have any answers as to how to find those tenths, because I was pushing myself to the limit, but it’s the cognitive system, it’s something innate that we have and that you develop with practice. 

“When you take a break, you reset. It’s like riding a bike again and having to put training wheels back on because you’ve lost your balance. Those things that seem easy from the outside, where you think that if you had the talent and you get back on a motorcycle or in a car, you’ll win again, your body, your brain, your senses… they have to wake up again somehow.

«The second stages, or when you achieve success for the second time, are very different from the first. I think that until we reach the top category, we drivers have won all the previous categories, so we have only known success, and we have reached the top. You think it’s normal, it’s been normal for you to win from the age of five to 22, and you’ve been world champion several times like Marc, so it’s normal to always win.”

Recapping his impressive start to his 2023 season with Aston Martin, Alonso added: “When you go through a difficult period and then win again, you realise that you have to get used to it. We saw this with Marc in 2024, or with me in 2023 when I got eight [podiums] with Aston Martin. It was only eight podiums, I didn’t win any races, but those podiums were an explosion of joy. 

“I look at the photos of those podiums and maybe Max Verstappen in first and Checo [Sergio Perez] in second are half happy, and me in third I’m ecstatic. And in 2024 it was the same [in MotoGP. Jorge [Martin] and Pecco [Bagnaia] with the pressure of fighting for the world championship, and Marc third or second, and without winning the race, was dancing on the podium, or with a hat. I think you experience it differently and you have to enjoy it.»

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— The Motorsport.com Team