He’s fast. But not that fast. And year by year, while he’s certainly not disgraced himself, he’s been massively overshadowed by Marc.
Remarkably, Álex has managed to maintain a good-humoured equanimity and to remain thoroughly likeable throughout, and for this reason if no other few could really begrudge the solid gold leg-up straight into the top MotoGP team. Good luck to him in the hot seat. But it promises to throw a harsh light on the ghastly pressures riders at the highest level must face, on an almost weekly basis. Motorcycle racing is no different from any other top-level sport in this regard, although it does add the chance of potentially severe personal injury.
Tough at the top. But it is arguably even tougher when you are near the top but not actually winning. At least if you ride for, say, Aprilia or to a lesser extent KTM, you can blame the bike. There’s nowhere to hide on a factory Honda.
Álex Márquez is going to find it very, very tough. Probably.
This necessarily, like so much else, remains pure speculation. Which is really all we have for the moment. Motorbike racing remains in lock-down, with the calendar repeatedly redrawn, and the opening two rounds of the European season – the Spanish and French GPs – the latest casualties.
The Isle of Man TT has been cancelled – not unprecedented: the foot-and-mouth crisis of 2001 did the same. Rather surprisingly, the headline Suzuka Eight-Hours endurance race, scheduled for mid-July, is still set to go ahead. We shall see if it will go the way of the Olympic Games.