Motorcycling is often a family affair, and yet before Alex Marquez joined Marc Marquez at Honda for this season the two brothers had never raced together for the same MotoGP team.
Honda had more obvious options than Alex Marquez as replacements for Jorge Lorenzo this season — including Japanese rider Takaaki Nakagami and Frenchman Johann Zarco — but Marc Marquez, 27, dreamed of riding alongside his brother. The team heeded its six-time world champion and signed Alex Marquez, 24, although the team announced on Monday that it would only be for one year.
Next season, Alex Marquez is to drop to satellite team LCR, while Pol Espargaro, 29, also the youngest of a pair of racing Catalan brothers, is to join from KTM. Espargaro’s brother Aleix rides for Aprilla.
The Marquez brothers are to become the first brothers to race for the same team when the virus-delayed MotoGP season resumes in Jerez, Spain, this weekend.
Marc Marquez began his phenomenal career by winning the 125cc — now Moto3 — title in 2010 at the age of 17.
After winning the Moto2 title in 2012, he won the MotoGP title in his first full season in 2013 and repeated the triumph in 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019.
Alex has taken a little longer.
He won Moto3 in 2014 and took the Moto2 last year, a good progression when compared with anyone except his brother.
The brothers from Cervera, Spain, discovered motorcycling young and were pushed by their father, Julia.
They developed under the guidance of Emilio Alzamora, the 1999 125cc world champion.
“Marc and I have been racing together since we were very young, more or less every weekend,” Alex Marquez said in 2014. “I spend most of my time with him. Besides being my brother, he’s my best friend.”
When Alex Marquez won the Moto2 title, after a crisis of confidence caused by crashes in 2016, his brother said that he was “even more satisfied” than if he had won.
“It’s difficult to be ‘the brother of’ and he’s under a lot of pressure,” Marc Marquez said. “Today, he gave a championship ride. He’s not ‘the brother of,’ he’s Alex Marquez.”
“We train and do almost everything together,” Marc Marquez said. “I think it’s good for both of us. We help each other all the time.”
Together for the first time in the same category, the brothers face a new challenge: to preserve their bond while negotiating the complicated relationship between teammates: partners in the garage and rivals on the track.
“Having Marc as a teammate is the best way to find out as quickly as possible what this class is like, the secrets of Honda and to learn everything I can,” said Alex Marquez, whose goal is to be MotoGP rookie of the year.
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