Is Alex Marquez giving his brother Marc an easy ride in MotoGP battle?
It's a question that's been asked more frequently of late - and one the younger Marquez addressed head on in the wake of another Marc victory in the Italian Grand Prix at Mugello.
The pair have dominated this year's championship - they've finished 1-2 in 13 of the 18 races so far in 2025 - and currently sit comfortably first and second, respectively 110 and 70 points ahead of their nearest challenger Pecco Bagnaia.
But while Gresini Racing rider Alex has been able to take the fight to Bagnaia when the pair go head to head or, as they did on Sunday at Mugello, get stuck into a three-way duel, it's only really in the Silverstone sprint race that he's defeated his brother in straight combat - and on many occasions has struggled to put up much of a fight against him.
However, when asked by The Race about the apparent difference in his encounters versus his brother and Bagnaia (something that's also been noted at other times this season), Marquez was quick to dismiss it as simply a consequence of his strategy rather than any conscious effort to ride in a different way when faced with his own kin.
"Until the point that I attacked, I didn't have a really clear moment to attack them," he explained of his first overtake on both Bagnaia and Marc in the slipstream along Mugello's start/finish straight.
"But when Pecco did the mistake in the last corner, in that moment I took a really good slipstream, and I said, 'OK, now is the time, you have the opportunity to go for it'.
"That was my strategy, and when I saw the chance I took it."
He then elaborated that, while he was able to make a move on Bagnaia in one-on-one combat as he first fought the factory Ducati rider for the race lead, he had less to give later in the race when it came to taking on his brother - not because they're related but because he's simply harder to race in that way.
"He has a factory bike and we cannot forget that I'm in an independent team on a year-old bike," he added.
"And he is Marc. He is an eight-time world champion for something. You don't win a championship in a Panini [trading card pack]. Maybe for some I won two like this, but it is like it is.
"It's always tough to fight against him. The strongest point for me is to be constant and to not make mistakes. When I have the points to beat him and to win, I'll take it, I'll try like I do every race.
"People are saying, 'You don't attack him in the same way', but when he is the fastest you can't. You attack the riders in front when they are slower, but when they are faster you can't overtake them."
However, while Alex might reject the idea that he treats his brother any differently to his opponents, one person who disagreed with that idea was Bagnaia - likening it to how he races against his friends from fellow graduates of Valentino Rossi's academy set-up.
"It's clear that Alex takes more care about what he's doing with his brother," Bagnaia replied when asked about Alex's Marc battles by The Race, "but it's something normal, like I'm doing with the Academy riders. So it's normal. It's like this."
The Race says
Whether Alex Marquez is consciously or unconsciously riding in a different way when faced with his brother on track, there's certainly a perception that a racer known in the past for the occasional lairy move has very much had the kid gloves on this year; his claim that he doesn't try to overtake faster riders than him isn't exactly borne out by the evidence, after all.
Perhaps the best example of that came at Aragon last year when, albeit while trying to defend against Bagnaia rather than attack him, he made contact and took the pair down, dealing a major blow to Bagnaia's title hopes in the process.
And while there's not necessarily an easy fix for Marquez, it's nonetheless something that bears consideration should the pair find themselves in a slightly more opposing situation in the future, rather than their current quasi-team-mate status at Ducati.
Alex should, as The Race has already said, be in consideration for factory rides when the current contract cycle ends in 2027 - and has the potential to find himself on a competitive dark horse given that it aligns with a totally new set of rules.
Given that, he needs to do everything in his power to allay any suspicions that he might go easy on a race who's likely to be his biggest championship rival at any given time, just because they grew up sharing a bedroom!
