OVER the years, tennis fans have witnessed some of the biggest sibling rivalries of all time, including Serena and Venus Williams as well as Andy and Jamie Murray.
And the MotoGP world has one of the most exciting brotherly battles too.
8-time world champion Marc Marquez, 30, has been called the “Senna of the MotoGP world” and became the youngest ever rider to win the MotoGP title in 2013, at the age of 20.
He went on to win the world championship every year following, until 2020, when he came crashing into the air at around 100mph, suffering a fractured humerus, leading to surgery.
Marc returned the following year, only gaining 7th place, followed by 13th in 2022.
And, as he prepares for the 12th competition in San Morino this Sunday, he’s placing at 19th.
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Meanwhile, his younger brother, Alex Marquez, 27, won the Moto2 Motorcycling World Championship in 2019 with Team Estrella Galicia, and has been coming up behind him, hot on his (w)heels.
‘Jealous’ of older brother
For the first time in the boys’ careers, throughout this year’s world championship, Alex has been much higher up the league table than Marc, currently in 9th place in the GP.
And, as we sit down with him at Estrella Galicia’s bar at Silverstone, Alex admits his success is down to the competition he’s had with his brother.
“I look up to him quite a lot, I’m quite jealous of him,” he tells us. “I’ve achieved much more than what I imagined when I was young, and I think it’s because I’ve been fighting him.
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“When I was younger, I was comparing myself to him quite a lot.
“Later, I started to actually follow him.”
Marc and Alex were both in Honda until this year, as Alex has moved to Ducati – and he feels much more relaxed racing against him now.
He says: “Competing against each other is really nice, but it’s something that, if you can avoid it, it’s better, because when you see your brother crashing or something like that, it’s hard to not take it with you.
“But I love being in a different team to him. I feel more relaxed.
“In the same team, we’re on the same bike, we’re fighting, it’s something that in the first moment is nice, but later on, it gets hard.”
And Marc has loved having his brother around him as they’ve travelled the world together every year for each Grand Prix.
“Having my brother there is one of the coolest things I have in my career and in my life because it’s become a lifestyle,” he says.
“To spend your profession with your brother, race the same racetracks, it’s something very special and very nice. And yeah, we’re travelling around the world together.
“We are competing against each other, but also I try to help him, and he tries to help me. So this is very nice.”
Horror crash
Since Marc’s 2020 crash, he’s suffered complications with the metal plate in his arm, and has been back for surgery twice more, and he’s no longer able to extend his right arm out fully, meaning he finds controlling the bike on corners more difficult.
A later crash in 2022, during a warm-up session for the Indonesian GP, saw Marc flung from his bike while travelling at 115mph after his rear tyre gave way.
He suffered concussion and damaged a nerve in his eye after being flung 15 feet in the air, leading him to be diagnosed with diplopia, meaning he was seeing double.
At the time, BT Sport commentator Gavin Emmett said: “That’s a shocking crash for Marc Marquez. That’s one of the biggest high-sides I’ve seen in 25 years covering this sport.
“He must have been 12 to 15 feet in the air, the Repsol Honda man.”
Thought about retiring
And when we spoke to him, he confessed he was starting to lose confidence prior to this year’s GP, and he did think about retiring.
He says: “I never feel scared but it’s true that sometimes you lose confidence and, in the last races, I crashed many times and then I started to lose more and more confidence, and then, when you lose confidence, you are slower and even more unsafe.
“These last three years, with the four different injuries, four different situations on the arm, with a lot of injuries, I was thinking about stopping, and saying ‘okay, why am I doing this?’
“But it’s my passion, and I can not imagine, right now, a life without riding a bike, without riding in MotoGP.
“So at the moment, it’s my passion and I still feel competitive.”
Marc and Alex have been sponsored by Estrella Galicia, since 2012, and both tell us how important the relationship with the Spanish, family-run beer brand is to them.
Marc says: “It’s been such a long relationship, so it’s been very nice to see us grow together.
We’ve got bigger and bigger, step by step, and we’ve helped each other a lot.
“It looks like a very big company, but it’s a family company, and you can feel it.”
Alex adds: “We’ve had many years together, and they’ve invested in me.
“It’s really important, especially when you start, in smaller championships, and have less visibility to have help, because you need the money and to pay, because it costs a lot.
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“So to have them on your side is important.”
Estrella Galicia 0,0 is the Global Official Beer Partner of MotoGP™.
Source: Motorsport - thesun.co.uk
