Marc Marquez retirement ‘a possibility’ if Gresini Ducati move doesn’t work out next season, says brother Alex

Retirement could be an option for eight-time world champion Marc Marquez next year, his brother Alex Marquez has said.

Marc will leave Repsol Honda at the end of the current season after 11 years, six titles and 59 Grand Prix races to join his brother Alex at Gresini Ducati.

But after over 700 days without a race win, the 30-year-old has decided to move on from the team he has enjoyed so much success with.

He has penned an initial one-year deal with Gresini and, according to his brother Alex, will try to rediscover his “feeling and passion” for the sport.

“He was changing his mind every day. So I spoke with him, not every day, about that,” Alex told TNT Sports at the Indonesian Grand Prix. “But then one day I said ‘you’re changing a lot so I will give you my opinion as a brother, not as a Gresini Ducati rider’.

“From 2020, I think he needed that change, he needed to recover the feeling and passion, because I saw him on the Motegi podium, not happy, as normal Marc is. So I said ‘ok, you need a change’.

“He said he wanted to go to a small team, not saying that a small team is not professional, we are really professional, but the team looks like a small family. We are always together.

“This can help Marc to enjoy [his time] again on the bike and on the track.”

He also revealed that if, for any reason, the move was not to work out, Marc would consider retirement.

“We’ll see, his one-year contract is to see if he’ll enjoy it again,” Alex said. “He said to me that if he doesn’t enjoy it he will retire, that’s a possibility.

“He wants to see if he can enjoy it again, if he can be faster again after his injury. I don’t have any doubt but he has his doubts and he has all the reasons to have it because I had it when I was on the Honda bike last year.

“I’m sure that in Valencia after one day he’ll enjoy it a lot and the things that he has in his head will disappear fast."

One of the reasons for Marc’s pending HRC departure is his declining faith in the project and the consistent problems with the RC213V bike.

On what his soon-to-be team-mate can expect from Gresini, Alex said: “A really good engine, for sure, is what he can expect. A bike that gives you lots of feeling.

“It’s true that he’s riding for 11 years on the same [bike] but, so for sure, he will have to change a lot of things.

“I changed it and I only had three years on the [Honda] bike, so imagine 11? He will not have any problems and he will be fast.”

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