Marco Bezzecchi
Marc Marquez delivered the shake-up MotoGP needed when he made his debut in 2013. It took some of his new rivals by surprise.
For the records he smashed, 2013 is remembered as the year that the premier class’s greatest ever rookie graced the tarmac for the first time. In race one, Marquez announced his arrival.
A podium at the season-opener in Qatar, followed by a first win at COTA, would confirm within weeks that Honda had made the right choice.
They had found MotoGP’s next big thing, and without knowing, punched their ticket to multiple championships in the years following. They created a dynasty together.
Pol Espargaro knew about Marc Marquez long before some of his arch rivals did…
Marquez would have raced against Casey Stoner in 2012, had an unfortunate Moto2 crash not ruined his chances of an earlier graduation to MotoGP.
That same fateful season would be the year Marquez delivered his ‘best’ performance. Despite a rocky start to the year, he fought back the only way he knew how to – with winning.
READ MORE: Marc Marquez has now received a ‘strong’ offer from MotoGP team who have never won the title
Jack Miller was pleased to see Marc Marquez ‘spicing’ MotoGP up in 2013
Not everyone can be as awe-inspiring as Marquez when making their MotoGP debuts, though. Jack Miller wasn’t ‘prepared’ in 2015, and it set him back a few years.
That was despite Miller crediting Marquez for ‘spicing’ up the championship when he made his debut in 2013, back when the Aussie was still a Moto3 rider.
“MotoGP needed spicing up, and Marc has done that,” he said, according to Mat Oxley’s Marc The Magnificent biography.
He wasn’t the only one who noticed the difference in the intensity of racing after his arrival. It’s something the legendary Valentino Rossi spotted, too.
“Now it’s like a boxing match, back and forth with the tiger riders,” he said.
After working closely with him, Miller couldn’t believe Marquez’s ‘crazy’ approach to finding the limit, which helped him to win so many titles.
Over a decade on from both riders making their debuts, and they’re still on the grid together, so they must have been doing something right for a long while.
READ MORE: Marc Marquez tells his fans to ‘save their energy’ instead of attacking Valentino Rossi
What did Jack Miller achieve during the 2013 Moto3 season?
2013 happened to be Miller’s second year in Moto3, but at the age of 18, he had a lot to learn. Understandably, he was a few years behind Marquez.
Following the overwhelming successes of Mick Doohan in the 1990s and Casey Stoner in the 2000s, he was on hand to give Australia some hope again.
He wound up finishing seventh in the Moto3 standings, scoring points at all but four races, and failing to reach the podium.
In 2014, he increased his level of performance, winning six times en route to finishing runner-up, and was called up to ride in MotoGP, skipping Moto2, for 2015.
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