Eight-time world champion Marc Marquez will leave Honda at the end of the season to make a sensational switch to the satellite Ducati squad Gresini Racing in next year.
Marquez’s decision to race a year-old Ducati and end ties with the factory Honda squad a season early comes amidst a difficult period for the Japanese manufacturer.
He has signed only a one-year deal with Gresini, telling the assembled media at the Indonesian Grand Prix last weekend that he has done so to discover whether or not he can find his enjoyment for riding a MotoGP bike again.
Speaking to British broadcaster TNT Sport, Alex Marquez admitted his brother will consider retirement at the end of 2024 if he still doesn’t enjoy his racing – but believes all of the doubts he has will vanish after his first test of the Ducati in Valencia in November.
“It’s what he said, the sense to have one year is to see if again if he enjoys this world,” Alex Marquez, who missed the Indonesian GP due to an ongoing rib injury, said.
“He is really [open] to me, and he says ‘ok, if I don’t enjoy I will retire’. It’s like this.
“It’s a possibility that now is on. So, he wants to see if he can enjoy again, if he can be fast after his injury.
“I don’t have any doubts but he has his doubts. He has all the reasons to have them because I had them on the Honda bike last year.
“But I’m sure in Valencia after one day already he will enjoy it a lot and these things [doubts] he has in his head will disappear really fast.”
Marc Marquez’s Indonesian GP proved to be a difficult one, as he crashed out of both races at the Mandalika track.
It took his total of falls for the season to 23, further highlighting why he has decided to leave the RV213V in 2024.
Speaking to DAZN after the grand prix, Marquez said: “It’s not taking too long [to get to the end of the season].
“I want to apologise to the team, this weekend we have gone from more to less; normally it was the other way around.
“Now it’s time to take a little step back. In the last races, from India, it seemed that we were further ahead.
“You get encouraged, you see yourself more with the first [riders] and this makes you lose your reference. Now it’s time to return to the mentality of Silverstone and Montmelo, take a little step back and finish races.”
Commenting on his GP crash, he said: “I was very calm. After the sprint I was very calm, I have not been stressed.
“But it was one of those falls that you do not see coming. Without warning I fell. It is worse to fall trying not to fall than to push.
“[In the sprint] I understood the fall, [but] not today [in the grand prix].”
