Lecuona on Márquez’s telemetry: “The way he enters corners isn’t normal—he’s an extraterrestrial”

Iker Lecuona took a close look at Marc Márquez’s data and came away astonished. The Valencian rider, back in MotoGP on a Ducati, shared what struck him while analysing the telemetry of the Cervera phenomenon: “The way Márquez turns in is not normal; he’s an extraterrestrial”.

He made the remarks on ‘Curva 15’, the official podcast of the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Cheste, where Lecuona also looked back on the darkest period of his career.

Returning to the premier class was no easy task. Lecuona had to quickly get to grips with a bike he didn’t know and electronics that differed from what he was used to in Superbike. Despite this, the Spanish rider managed to finish seventh—a result worth twice as much given the circumstances of his adjustment.

Studying the data was what opened his eyes to Márquez’s riding style. What impressed him most was the multi-time champion’s corner entry, which Lecuona describes as out of this world.

On the podcast, Lecuona also spoke candidly about the season when he came close to giving it all up. It had begun in the worst possible way, with the most violent crash of his career on the final day of winter testing in Jerez: he broke an arm, a vertebra and his collarbone. Then, at Le Mans, another rider crashed in front of him and he broke the same collarbone again, requiring surgery and forcing him to miss more races. “It was a year of little experience, a lot of pain and no desire to train. I didn’t want to leave the house and I shut myself away,” he recalled.

The enjoyment had disappeared. “I’d enjoyed riding bikes my whole life. I used to go training with my dad, crash, break a leg and go back to training because I loved it. But when I got to the World Championship, I thought it wasn’t fun anymore.” He even asked his father to contact Grau, who has a supermoto team, so he could return there the following year. “I wanted to leave the World Championship, basically quit motorcycling and do something else,” he admitted.

The turning point came when he asked for help. “I’m someone who keeps things bottled up,” Lecuona explained. That year, he started seeing a psychologist and gradually learned to talk about what was happening to him, even though opening up to his parents was difficult. “With the psychologist, I began to open up a little more and I also rediscovered the desire to leave the house and train. Little by little, I recovered and decided to give it another year.”

His family’s role was crucial too: “I’m always grateful to my parents for the way they are. They never forced me to do anything and supported me both when I wanted to carry on and when I wanted to quit.” From a young man ready to go home to a rider capable of getting on a Ducati in MotoGP and deciphering Márquez’s secrets, Lecuona’s journey is about far more than a simple result on track.

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