Marc Marquez names MotoGP hero “I tried to copy” - it’s not Casey Stoner

Eight-time World Champion and current MotoGP points leader Marc Marquez has explained how he tried to incorporate Dani Pedrosa’s style into his own riding in his early years in MotoGP.

Marquez partnered Pedrosa at the factory Honda team in MotoGP from his rookie year in 2013 until Pedrosa’s final year of full-time racing in 2018.

Aside from Marquez’s current teammate – Francesco Bagnaia, who won when Marquez crashed out of the Grand Prix of the Americas in April – Pedrosa is the only one of Marquez’s teammates to have won a grand prix while paired with the #93 in the same team.

Marc Marquez tried to copy Dani Pedrosa

“I learned a lot from Dani Pedrosa, but because he was a teammate and he is the one with whom I have learned the most about how to ride a MotoGP bike, what you have to do to go fast," Marc Marquez told Spanish MotoGP broadcaster DAZN.

“Dani had a handicap, which was height and strength.

"I tried to ride like him, but with more strength and a little more aggressive. That's it, I tried to copy that, because he was the one who rode my bike.”

Marquez added that there are elements of racing that he has tried to take from other rivals he has faced.

“I have learned to manage races as Valentino [Rossi] managed them, to try to do the hammer mode as Lorenzo did," the Ducati Lenovo Team rider said.

“But you cannot copy a rival, you have to try to get closer to his strengths, but ride in your own way.”

Marquez entered the current MotoGP summer break, after a fifth successive Sprint-Grand Prix double at the Czech Grand Prix just over a week ago, with a 120-point lead over his brother, Alex Marquez, in the riders standings.