The first of them was at Jerez, opening round of the European season, and it was perhaps an omen that he took away one of Marquez’s records in the process – youngest-ever pole qualifier. He did that emphatically, emerging as the closest challenger to Marquez at four of the last seven races, and taking seven podium finishes.Īs emphatic were his six poles out of 13 front-row starts. Quartararo had a point to prove – to convince those who doubted whether he deserved a MotoGP ride, after only one single Moto2 win in four years in the smaller classes. Mike Hailwood was 25 when he took his fourth straight in 1965.

Traditionalists will appreciate, though, that he missed out being the youngest to take four in a row.

Only Giacomo Agostini (eight) and Valentino Rossi (seven) have won more premier-class championships, and he has set many youngest-ever records since his first class-rookie title win in 2013 among them the youngest to claim six premier-class titles. Still only 26, Marc reinforced his place in the pantheon of superstars. Four of them were by less than a second, and three of those by less than a tenth of a second. Marquez’s way of accepting second happened six times in 19 races. He frequently spoke of this matured approach: thinking about the title rather than only race wins, and accept that at some tracks other bikes might work better. On every other occasion, but for an electronically triggered slip-off in Texas, he came second. On a factory Repsol Honda that had closed the gap to Ducati’s top speed advantage, he was able to ride in a more measured way. It was only after winning again at the final race that he revealed he’d suffered shoulder injuries bad enough to require a second successive operation over the winter, this time to the right shoulder. Able not only to save situations that would have others on the ground, when Marc did come down hard, in Thailand and Malaysia, he walked away, showing no outward signs when he was obviously hurting. There were few chinks in the six-times MotoGP champion’s armour in 2019, but when revealed they were instantly sealed.

Moto gp 2019