Issue link: https://slung.uberflip.com/i/1239615
2019 CYCLE NEWS RIDER OF THE YEAR—MOTOGP CHAMPION MARC MARQUEZ P92 Interview some of the closest finishes in history. That was Marc's way of being careful. The year was not plain sailing. The 2018 season ended with Marc's left shoulder so often dis- located that it popped out even when Scott Redding patted him on the back in congratulations after he'd won the title at Motegi, and then again at the final round in Valencia. Major surgery in De- cember left him still recuperating in the early races. "It was only when we got to Europe that I felt I could ride normally," he said. Nor was the bike perfect at first—hence his only non-finish of the year, when he crashed out a massive lead in round three in Texas, triggered after braking for the hairpin at the end of COTA's long straight. It was caused by a glitch in the engine-braking/ throttle-blipping program. "The engine brake in the first part of the season was a prob- lem, but now they fix," he said. "HRC has very good engineers. In the first four or five races, we were struggling because it was a new engine, then they fix. It is maybe not the best, but it is constant." His personality is sunny, and he accepts adversity easily. That is how he makes it look, anyway. In truth, he never misses an Maverick Vinales succumbs to the tremendous pressure Marquez exerted on him in Australia. Occasionally Marquez had to settle for second, as he did here by losing a final corner battle with Dovizioso in Austria.