Marc Márquez
Marc Márquez won the MotoGP world championship in his rookie premier-class season in 2013, becoming the youngest premier-class champion in the sport's modern era, and went on to win multiple further titles for Honda through the 2010s before a serious 2020 arm injury derailed several seasons of his career, which he has since rebuilt at Ducati.
Marc Márquez progressed rapidly through the smaller Grand Prix classes, winning championships in both the 125cc and Moto2 categories before moving up to MotoGP in 2013 and immediately winning the premier-class world championship in his rookie season — an extraordinary result that made him the youngest rider to achieve this in the modern era.
Márquez went on to win multiple further MotoGP world championships through the 2010s, establishing himself as the dominant rider of his generation for Honda, known for an aggressive, elbow-down riding style built around extreme lean angles and a willingness to save crashes most riders would not attempt to recover from.
A severe arm injury sustained in a 2020 crash led to multiple surgeries and complications that significantly affected his competitiveness for several subsequent seasons. Márquez has since rebuilt his career at Ducati, having moved from Honda in 2024 after more than a decade as the face of the Japanese manufacturer's premier-class effort.
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Márquez's 2013 title, achieved in just his first season racing in the premier MotoGP class after moving up from Moto2, made him the youngest rider to win the premier-class world championship in the modern era — an extraordinary result for a rider still adapting to the fastest class of motorcycle racing for the first time.
A crash at the 2020 Spanish Grand Prix caused a serious humerus fracture that led to multiple subsequent surgeries and complications, sidelining Márquez for extended periods and significantly affecting his competitiveness for several following seasons — a dramatic interruption to a career that had, until that point, been defined by near-constant championship contention.
Márquez's riding style, characterised by dramatic lean angles and a willingness to save crashes that would end most riders' races, became one of the most visually distinctive and widely replicated (and widely discussed) approaches in the sport, admired for its raw commitment even by riders who found it uncomfortably risky to watch.
Álex Márquez, Marc's younger brother, has also competed at the top level of Grand Prix motorcycle racing and won a world championship of his own in the Moto3 class, making the Márquez brothers one of the more prominent sibling pairings in the current MotoGP paddock.
After years of speculation given his declining competitiveness on an increasingly uncompetitive Honda, Márquez made the significant move to Ducati, a rival manufacturer, marking a major shift after more than a decade as the face of Honda's premier-class effort and a genuine test of his ability to rebuild success on different machinery.