Why Rossi and Marquez Sepang ‘kick’ still divides fans 10 years later

They say time heals all wounds. Well, not if you are Valentino Rossi or Marc Marquez. Their rivalry helped make the 2010s one of MotoGP’s golden eras, even if, ironically, the two never truly battled for a championship head-to-head. 

You would think the pair – and their loyal supporters – would be willing to turn the page, considering how things have changed since they infamously came to blows at the Malaysian Grand Prix in 2015. Rossi has long retired from MotoGP and forged a successful career in sportscar, winning multiple races at the GT3 level with BMW. Marquez, meanwhile, has finally come back from an injury that nearly forced an early retirement to win his seventh title in MotoGP. But their feud remains one of MotoGP’s most talked about storylines, still dividing fans years after the chequered flag fell. 

To start, it’s worth acknowledging what a remarkable era it was that people still continue to talk about it. Marquez, Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo are all exceptional talents – along with the likes of Dani Pedrosa, Andrea Dovizioso and others – and the intense racing they produced must be celebrated.

Unfortunately, due to the way some events unfolded, one flashpoint still dominates the conversation: Sepang 2015.

After Marquez’s back-to-back titles in 2013 and 2014, Yamaha struck back in 2015, setting up a fierce title fight between Rossi and Lorenzo. Rossi was already a nine-time world champion, but it had been six years since he last lifted the trophy. Lorenzo was fast and ruthless on track, and more than capable of taking the fight to the Italian, a two-time MotoGP world champion himself at this point having taken the title in 2010 and 2012.

If those two could disappear into the distance at every race and battle amongst themselves, things would have been different. But even on a slower and more aggressive Honda, Marc Marquez was still competitive enough to mix with the two. 

The rivalry between Rossi and Marquez simmered all year, but the Australian Grand Prix lit the fuse and set the stage for what happened in Malaysia. 

Marquez was the pre-race favourite at Phillip Island and did win the race as many had expected, but only after a final-lap pass on Lorenzo. 

This led Rossi – who finished fourth – to accuse Marquez of deliberately slowing the pace earlier in the race to hinder his title hopes. Admittedly, that theory was undermined by the fact that Marquez ultimately passed Lorenzo and took five points off him. Still, Rossi seemed consumed by the larger narrative he’d built up in his mind. While he may genuinely have wondered why Marquez was riding so conservatively when he clearly had the speed to break away, it’s widely believed those doubts were fuelled by voices within his own camp. 

Either way, he arrived in Sepang visibly agitated, and at the pre-race press conference, he publicly accused Marquez of manipulating races to help Lorenzo. 

This would be followed by a wild dogfight between Marquez and Rossi in the Malaysian GP, with neither willing to give an inch to the other as they swapped positions every lap. As they approached Turn 14, Rossi ran wide and looked over at him mid-corner. A second or so later, they made contact – and Marquez was sent crashing out of the race. 

Valentino Rossi, Yamaha Factory Racing, Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images

The fallout was seismic as Rossi was hit with three penalty points, which translated into a back-of-the-grid start for the Valencia finale. The Italian put in a heroic ride to climb to fourth, but it wasn’t enough to deny Lorenzo, who sealed his third MotoGP title with a win.

To this day, Rossi insists that Marquez conspired against him to aid his compatriot and still harbours a grudge. Marquez has been less upfront about their rivalry, though he’s shown little inclination to repair the relationship either.

There was brief hope that the pair might bury the hatchet after the tragic death of Moto2 rider Luis Salom at the 2016 Catalan Grand Prix, but renewed on-track clashes soon reignited tensions. Nearly a decade later, the frost between them remains unmistakable.

Unlike Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna, who embraced on the podium after Prost’s final race, Rossi and Marquez still barely acknowledge each other in the paddock. When the protagonists themselves refuse to move on, it’s little wonder their fans can’t either. 

The pre-race press conference shocked the world, and the incident itself split the paddock. Did Rossi actually kick Marquez, or did his leg simply slip off the foot peg – before or after the contact? 

Even MotoGP race direction couldn’t find a discernible answer from the camera angles that were available at that time. While it did conclude that Marquez aggrieved Rossi by dictating the pace, nothing in the regulations prevented him from doing so. At best, it was against the spirit of the regulation. Rossi, however, had broken the rules by running Marquez wide and causing a crash. When the back-of-the-grid penalty was announced ahead of the Valencia GP, it equally caught many by surprise – and led Rossi to even contemplate skipping the race altogether.

Valentino Rossi, Yamaha Factory Racing, Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images

Even after doing everything in the finale to chase that elusive 10th world title – and eighth in MotoGP – Rossi had to concede defeat. So, one can probably sympathise with Rossi the impact the lost chance had on him. This, after all, turned out to be his last crack at the world championship. However, rationally speaking, Rossi let the title slip away by allowing Marquez to get under his skin after Phillip Island. Even after the Australian GP, he still had a massive points buffer over Lorenzo and could have won the title if he had remained focused.

Whether Marquez engaged in foul play in Australia is anyone’s guess, but he was almost certainly toying with Rossi in Malaysia – and that was provoked by the personal attack the Yamaha rider had launched on him earlier in the weekend.

Either way, Rossi was bigger than MotoGP itself at that time, and his legions of fans were always going to take the feud personally. Marquez and Lorenzo hence became a subject of boos and even required extra security at the Italian rounds.

With Rossi’s results slowly declining as age crept up on him (combined with the M1 losing its edge over Honda’s RC213V), 2015 would turn out to be the last time he really fought for the championship. For Rossi and his fans, that makes the defeat even harder to accept.

Marquez, the young kid on the block, meanwhile channelled the backlash into fuel and won the next four titles in a row. Every boo seemed to strengthen his resolve to surpass his childhood idol.

Even in Rossi’s final years, the tension never truly faded. There were even rumours that Rossi had blocked Alex Marquez’s move to MotoGP with Petronas SRT in 2020 through his Yamaha connections. 

Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team, Valentino Rossi, Yamaha Factory Racing

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images

Now that Rossi is retired, he still remains an essential part of MotoGP and maintains a presence in the paddock thanks to his VR46 team. Rossi’s fans continue to flock to racetracks around the world, and he still holds an almost God-like status among them. 

Marquez, despite now matching Rossi’s title record, has never commanded the same devoted following as his long-time rival. And while his fans have plenty to celebrate this year, they’ve yet to see their hero consistently go head-to-head with another A-list contender for victory week in, week out. 

And that’s the crux of the problem. MotoGP hasn’t seen a rivalry of that magnitude since. Recent battles like Francesco Bagnaia vs Jorge Martin and Quartararo vs Bagnaia have delivered great racing but lacked the raw emotion, controversy and theatre of Rossi vs Marquez. 

As it stands, neither Rossi nor Marquez is expected to attend this weekend’s Malaysian GP. But even if they both skip the trip to Sepang, the ghost of 2015 will hover over the circuit and overshadow the events on track.  

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– The Autosport.com Team