Marc Marquez: “Money is important, but the most difficult thing was…”

Marc Marquez has opened up on the burden of leaving Honda for Ducati.

The decision has paid off on-track, with Marc Marquez returning to winning ways last year on Gresini’s year-old Ducati.

He is now top of the MotoGP standings after four rounds in 2025, having won seven out of eight races.

But Marquez needed to break his Honda contract, which was the most lucrative in the sport at the time, to prioritise the better machinery on offer at Ducati.

He also stopped working with long-time sponsors Red Bull and Repsol.

Marquez reportedly walked away from a Honda offer worth nine figures.

Marc Marquez: "The money is important..."

“It was a big responsibility, and a super difficult decision,” Marquez told Motorsport about leaving Honda, where he had enjoyed his heyday and won each of his six MotoGP titles.

“More than the money, which for everybody, 98% of people, the money is important…”

Marquez was reminded how much money he had earned from his MotoGP success with Honda.

He acknowledged: “Yes, but the money is always important. Do you have enough? Yes. Do you want more? Yes.

“That was difficult. But the most difficult thing were the relationships.

“I need to be loyal with people who gave me my career.

“But before taking a decision I spoke to Honda, Red Bull, Repsol. They gave me advice, 80% was ‘you are here to compete, to do your best, sometimes in life you need to take a decision, if the mechanics from Honda are your friends, they will [stay] your friends’.

“We had a dinner together in Barcelona. We didn’t speak about bikes, we spoke about life. Dinner as friends.

“After listening to all the people, they convinced me.

“They said: ‘You are taking care of your mechanics, your family, your sponsors but it’s your career - it will be 15 or 20 years, you need to make the best of it’.

“I would’ve liked to stay in the same team with the same people because it was my target.

“But I needed to find the best to perform in the best way.

“That was my decision to continue with my career. Because I was not enjoying it, I would’ve stopped, that’s it.”

Marquez credits Gresini Racing for helping him to rediscover his love of racing last year, after a brutal crash-filled 2023 with Honda.

This year, Marquez has stepped up to factory Ducati machinery and has left teammate Pecco Bagnaia trailing in his wake.

Meanwhile, Honda’s MotoGP project has shown signs of improvement too.