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The feud between Marc Marquez and Valentino Rossi which broke out in 2015, and according to his fans cost the champion from Tavullia his tenth title, has remained an open wound for Yamaha. To the point that four years later the Iwata manufacturer decided to veto the hiring of Alex Marquez by Razlan Razali's Sepang Racing Team, in order to prevent a member of the Marquez family from racing with an M1. This is precisely the scenario that emerges from "Alex", the documentary released on Wednesday 6 December by DAZN, dedicated to the figure of the rider from Cervera, younger brother of the eight-time world champion.
“2019 was the fifth year in Moto2, I had been criticised for that. I’d wanted to get to MotoGP for years. In the middle of the year, in Brno, I had an offer to do a year in Moto2 and I think it was two years in MotoGP, with Petronas Yamaha. Fabio Quartararo was in front, fighting with Marc and it was a bike I liked. I thought it was good for my riding style, but didn’t end up working for ‘x’ reasons. I wouldn't say it was a veto, but there wasn't the OK from Yamaha - Alex said in the documentary of the same name - They gave the OK to the year in Moto2 with Petronas, but not to the two years in MotoGP. It was all very fast, from one week to the next, but when I saw this situation, I decided with my team not to do it and to stay with the Marc VDS team for another year."
Not even Razlan Razali made any secret of his interest in the 2014 champion of the Moto3 class, signed by the Sepang Racing Team before the interference of the Yamaha top management.
“I was the team manager of the Petronas Sepang Racing Team. In 2019 we had a bike in Moto2, but Dorna gave us another seat for the 2020 season. I like Alex and he was on my shortlist. So, we had some secret meetings and we signed at the Marquez’s motorhome for him to be with us for one year in Moto2, and in 2021 when Fabio went to the factory team, to move Alex up to MotoGP with us in 2021, when Fabio Quartararo would join the official team" explained the Malaysian, entering more in detail about what happened: “We actually signed the contract for Alex to be with us. This was in August 2019, at 10 o’clock at night. I told Yamaha that I wanted to sign Alex for Moto2 and then for MotoGP. And Yamaha said ‘no, no member of the Marquez family can be at Yamaha.’ I said, ‘Why? This is my team’. It was because of Marc and what happened in 2015. It became personal from them.”
The real cause of his brother Alex's exclusion from Yamaha's plans for MotoGP, Marc Marquez also intervened during the documentary, providing his point of view on the issue.
“The contract was signed in our motorhome in Brno 2019. As far as I know, when my brother's name arrived in the Yamaha garage they vetoed it, even though it was a satellite team, since he hadn't signed with Yamaha but with Petronas. More than the rivalry with Valentino Rossi, it was the rivalry with Yamaha - commented the 30-year-old Spaniard - I have always had a rivalry with Yamaha, we never spoke much with Lin Jarvis. It's sad that these things happen in the paddock, because no matter how much you are relatives or friends, you have to differentiate things. And I can say that many friends speak to each other in a more technical way than my brother and I do."
