Marquez on Moto3 champ Guevara: “Kids will make things difficult for me”

Marc Marquez says that his excitement to see new talents like Izan Guevara is tinged with the realisation that they will challenge his own place at the top.

James Dielhenn

18 Oct 2022

Marc Marquez, MotoGP race, Australian MotoGP, 16 October

Guevara, aged 18, won the Moto3 championship at the weekend to cement his status as one of the sport’s most thrilling starlets.

He will be promoted and feature in the 2023 Moto2 rider line-up alongside Jake Dixon for GASGAS Aspar Team.

"Of course I get excited when I see kids like that,” Marquez said to AS.

“But at the same time not, because I know that [they are] going to make things difficult for me from now on.

“You see that they are kids who are going to go up to MotoGP.”

Izan Guevara, Moto3 race, Australian MotoGP 16 October

Guevara’s accomplishment comes a year after another Spaniard, Pedro Acosta, became the first rookie and the youngest rider since Loris Capirossi in 1990 to win the Moto3 title.

Acosta, still just 18, is now in his rookie Moto2 season.

Marquez said about his countrymen: “They are going to burn their stages and make their mistakes, like when Acosta arrived in Moto2, he was falling.

“When I got to Moto2, I crashed three times in a row. They'll make their mistakes, but they're going to get there for sure.”

Marquez compared Guevara and Acosta: “Both are good, although with different styles. Acosta has a more aggressive point and Guevara is finer, although not as much as Jorge Lorenzo.

“You will see more in Moto2 his style, but he is a rider who lets the bike run a lot. They are two different styles and in the end, both champions."

Marquez shared advice he gave to Moto3’s teenage champion: "He's a kid who goes by instinct. I told him the other day that in Thailand it was not by instinct, but by thinking, rather than instinct.

“I told him to keep going on instinct. When you have the speed and you are young, you are also not aware of what a world championship is and he has beaten the champion in Australia, on a difficult circuit.

“He deserves it. He is the most talented right now in Moto3 and will be seen in Moto2, where he will go fast. Last year it was covered by Acosta.”

Marquez finished second in the Australian MotoGP and, in a season interrupted by his fourth major arm surgery, he sits 13th in the MotoGP standings.