Alex Marquez heads into the British MotoGP at Silverstone acknowledging that while the track may slightly suit his riding style better, his older brother Marc Marquez remains the clear favorite.
Alex, who outqualified Marc and won the wet Sprint race at Silverstone last year, knows that Marc ultimately had the edge in both of the main 2023 races. Marc was running fourth in the Sprint when he crashed, while Alex sat in seventh. In the grand prix, Marc finished fourth with Alex again in seventh, 2.8 seconds behind.
Now as Gresini teammates, the Marquez brothers return to Silverstone sitting first and second in the world championship standings. Factory Ducati rider Marc leads by 22 points after Alex’s DNF in Le Mans, where he crashed twice.
Alex admits that Silverstone’s fast, flowing layout suits him:
“It’s a track I enjoy a lot, really fast and flowing,” he said. “Maybe it fits my style slightly better, but this is Marc Marquez. He knows how to be fast everywhere.”
Despite his Le Mans result, Alex had no regrets about his decisions during the unpredictable flag-to-flag race. Both he and Marc started on slicks, took a double long lap penalty for swapping bikes pre-race, then switched to wet tyres as rain intensified.
“For six laps, it wasn’t raining. Two more dry laps and we could have been ahead of Johann [Zarco],” Alex explained. “It was a lottery, and we played it well, but the crashes made it look worse than it was.”
With the weather forecast predicting more mixed conditions for this weekend at Silverstone, both brothers will have to be sharp with their strategies once again.
