Marquez: “Before, I thought I’d be my brother’s mechanic”

Episode 33 of the MotoGP™ Podcast is up and running and this week you get the full debrief from the Gran Premio Michelin® de Aragon, as well as getting to know 2019 Moto2™ Championship leader Alex Marquez (EG 0,0 Marc VDS) that little bit better.

The younger Marquez brother sits down with the MotoGP™ Podcast for a 15-minute chat about what it was like growing up alongside Marc Marquez, how he started out with bikes and how he envisaged himself becoming his brother’s mechanic.

“I remember that I always went with my Dad and brother and watching him ride motocross. One time, I said “Dad, I want to try it as well” to see if it’s good for me or not,” says Marquez. “And he said to me already some days before that if you want to ride, you have your brother’s bike so you can go. So I said ok, why not, I’ll try it. Before that, I always thought, ‘ok, I’ll be my brother’s mechanic because no risk…” but then from that day, I thought maybe not mechanic but a rider… not like a job, but for fun.”

Regular analyst and former MotoGP™ star John Hopkins then delves into what happened at MotorLand Aragon, including the first lap incident between Team Suzuki Ecstar’s Alex Rins and Franco Morbidelli (Petronas Yamaha SRT).

“It’s a tough one, Rins is still finding himself in a bit of rut like we touched on in the last podcast, especially going from such a high in Silverstone a couple week’s back getting that race win… he showed flashes of brilliance throughout the Aragon weekend and his true pace but he struggled in qualifying and it went from bad to worse in the race with that horrible manoeuvre taking out Morbidelli,” comments former Suzuki rider Hopkins.

“It’s something that as a rider that no one likes to do it and it’s a horrible thing but at the end of the race he showed great sportsmanship doing that walk of shame. I’ve been there unfortunately on quite a few occasions. In Motegi particularly when I took out 4 or 5 riders, I had to go up to each and every garage after the GP and make the apology which is so cringey. You don’t know how the rider’s going to react, you walk in the mechanics are shaking their heads at you, you feel bad already but as the rider on the receiving end, you have to have some compassion because more times than not you’ve been there and made the same mistake yourself.”

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