Marc Marquez says a visit to the hairdresser forced him to change his approach mid-season, which he believes was the key to turning his season around and winning a fourth MotoGP championship at the weekend.
Marquez trailled Andrea Dovizioso and Maverick Vinales at the mid-point of the season before going on to take five wins in eight races to lead the championship and eventually claim the title at the season finale in Valencia.
It was a warning that he was losing his hair due to stress that forced the Spaniard to change his approach and believes that was the reason for his success this year.
"It has been a really tough season, many ups and downs and many difficult and good moments," he said.
"Especially the first part of the season was very hard. I will tell you a thing: after Montmelo I was with my hairdresser and she said, ‘what’s going on, what’s happening?’ I asked why and she said, ‘because you are losing your hair’. I thought I’m 24, it’s impossible and my father my grandfather have hair, but then I went to the doctor and he said I need to change the approach to the races because the stress inside my body was too much.
"I’m always smiling, always happy, but inside of me we are human and the tension is there. When you have such a good team around you it helps a lot and you can go out and be better and better.
"The second part of the season for me has been perfect; we controlled all the timings, all the moments and finished always on the podium, [apart from] Malaysia.
"I changed my approach but especially I changed the feeling with the bike. We did a big change and then I got the correct feeling again and started to enjoy it again. After Le Mans, I said I was not enjoying riding the bike and we said first of all, we changed the mentality and we needed to find a way to enjoy on the bike and then we will find the results."
Despite a very strong end to the season, Marquez says there are still some changes that need to be made for the 2018 season after he suffered 27 falls during the season.
"Twenty-seven-and-a-half!" he added, joking about his moment during the final race. "It means that it was not easy and I was pushing every practice; I was always all-in since FP1 and I was going out and being convinced that I was able to be fast.
"Of course it is something we need to change for the future and always I try to be realistic. We won and we are happy that we won, but there are a few points that we need to improve for next year."
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