How Alex Marquez emulated his MotoGP world champion brother with Spanish GP win

By one of those whims of fate that seem to be straight out of a science fiction movie, Alex Marquez had to wait 93 – Marc’s famous race number – grands prix in the heavyweight class to be able to call himself a race winner.

But the younger Marquez’s triumph at Jerez last weekend was richly deserved. Ever since the start of winter testing, the Gresini Ducati rider’s approach to the season has been perfect. Avoiding mistakes and standing on nine of a possible 10 podiums means he is once again in the lead of the championship.

Apart from the concentration and race management lapses that led him to finish sixth in Qatar, no rider has been more effective than Alex Marquez. In fact, the Spaniard has been able to score the most points (140) after five rounds since the change of format and the introduction of sprint races in 2023. He now has 16 points more than Jorge Martin, last year’s leader after the first five events.

In contrast to his brother Marc Marquez, who is all explosiveness, Alex Marquez has been repeatedly labelled as a man more akin to a diesel engine: he needs a little longer to pick up speed, but when he does there’s no stopping him.

“Alex is doing what he has done all his life, and he is doing it very well. He struggles more than Marc to get going, but when he does, when he masters… the tools he has at his disposal, he’s very reliable,” Davide Tardozzi, manager of the factory Ducati team, told Autosport.

The reputation of Alex Marquez is backed up by the numbers: of the nine Sunday podiums in his MotoGP career, four are from this year.

Since his brother began to make headlines in a textbook pre-season, Marc Marquez has also been happy to tell anybody willing to listen that the diesel engine was now purring along.

“This is the best Alex we have seen in MotoGP,” said the multiple champion at Jerez, where a crash on the third lap meant he watched his brother’s triumph from the sidelines.

Despite his disappointment, the first thing Marc Marquez did when he returned his Ducati to the garage – he finished 12th after picking up his bike and rejoining at the back of the pack – was walk to parc ferme to embrace his brother, who could not hold back the tears. A completely understandable reaction considering the rollercoaster he experienced at Jerez – a story that Marc Marquez could have written for himself.

Alex Marquez was the fastest rider on Friday morning at the Circuito Angel Nieto. He crashed twice on the day, with the second accident in the afternoon quite a serious one. With a quarter of an hour to go, the Moto3 (2014) and Moto2 (2019) world champion went back out on track to try to get into the group of 10 that earn direct access to Q2. The Lleida-born rider pulled off a stratospheric lap with two minutes to go, lowering Francesco Bagnaia’s track record by 34 thousandths of a second.

If that declaration of intent seemed to emanate straight from the Marc Marquez playbook, the same could be said of his comments afterwards. He was much more critical of his mistakes than of the record he set.

“I’m not happy at all,” said Alex Marquez, who, like his brother, has no problem raising his hand when he screws up. “I set the record in the afternoon after being fastest in the morning. That’s all very well. But I didn’t do the job that needs to be done on a Friday.

“I’m angry about the crash, because it was a mistake that came from over-confidence. I didn’t see the limit in any corner; I [felt like I] could have braked a hundred metres later, leaned more and gone faster. I have to control myself a little bit,” he concluded as he looked ahead to a Saturday that he took a little more cautiously.

The next day he qualified fourth, missing the front row of the grid for the first time this year. In the sprint he started well and slotted into third, the best seat in the house for Fabio Quartararo’s fall ahead of him on the second lap. Then, despite riding in his wake, Francesco Bagnaia was unable to get the better of Alex Marquez at any point. The Gresini man’s second place was a teaser for what would happen the following day – one that allowed him to shake off several tonnes of weight.

On Sunday, Alex Marquez won the Spanish Grand Prix the Marc Marquez way. After holding grid position at the start, he saw his brother fall in front of him on the third lap, then breezed past Bagnaia on the next, when he recorded the fastest lap as he prepared to attack leader Quartararo. Just before the halfway point (lap 11), the Gresini rider pounced on the Yamaha rider at the first corner and came out on top.

Less than four kilometres later, he had taken eight tenths off El Diablo. That put the cherry on top of a race that might have looked suspiciously familiar to his illustrious brother.