Alex Márquez revealed he had signed a contract with a Yamaha satellite team for 2020, but the deal was canceled just five days later. The reason is related to Valentino Rossi.

In the high-stakes theater of MotoGP, where alliances shift faster than gears and grudges linger longer than exhaust fumes, few stories capture the sport’s raw underbelly like the one Alex Márquez unveiled this week. The younger brother of eight-time world champion Marc Márquez, Alex has carved his own path through the premier class, battling from the back of the grid to podium contention with Gresini Ducati. But in a candid interview on the Spanish podcast “El Cafelito” hosted by Josep Pedrerol, the 29-year-old from Cervera dropped a revelation that has reignited one of MotoGP’s most infamous feuds: In 2019, he signed a contract to join a Yamaha satellite team for the 2020 season, only for the deal to evaporate in just five days—torpedoed by Yamaha’s factory brass, with the shadow of Valentino Rossi’s bitter rivalry with his brother Marc looming large.

“Yes, I signed that contract,” Alex confessed, his voice steady but laced with the weight of what-ifs. “It was with a team that was essentially a Yamaha satellite. I inked the deal, but Yamaha held the final say—and they never gave the green light. The whole thing lasted five days.” The admission, aired on September 17, 2025, has sent shockwaves through the paddock, prompting a flood of reactions from riders, team principals, and fans alike. Social media erupted, with #MarquezYamahaGate trending worldwide, as clips from the podcast amassed millions of views. It’s a tale of collateral damage in a sport where personal vendettas can rewrite careers, and it pulls back the curtain on how the 2015 Sepang clash between Marc and Rossi continues to echo nearly a decade later.

To understand the depth of this bombshell, one must rewind to the autumn of 2019. Alex was then the reigning Moto2 world champion, fresh off a dominant title run with the Marc VDS team that mirrored his brother’s precocious rise. Opportunities abounded: a promotion to MotoGP seemed inevitable. Enter Petronas Sepang Racing Team (SRT), Yamaha’s ambitious satellite outfit backed by Malaysian oil giant Petronas. Led by the shrewd Razlan Razali, SRT had disrupted the grid since its 2019 debut, poaching talents like Fabio Quartararo and Franco Morbidelli. They saw in Alex a perfect fit—a young, proven winner who could bridge their Moto2 and MotoGP ambitions. The plan was elegant: Alex would ride their Moto2 bike in 2020, then step up to MotoGP in 2021 alongside Quartararo, who was earmarked for the factory Yamaha seat.

Secret meetings unfolded in the shadows of the Brno circuit that summer. As revealed in a 2023 DAZN documentary on Alex’s career, the deal was sealed inside the Márquez brothers’ motorhome, with Marc present as a silent witness. Razali even flashed a smartphone photo of the signing moment during the film, capturing Alex’s grin amid stacks of paperwork. “We had a few discreet talks and signed it there,” Razali recounted. “It was Moto2 for a year, then two seasons in MotoGP once Fabio moved up. Everything was set.” But whispers of hesitation from Yamaha’s higher-ups soon turned to outright veto. Lin Jarvis, Yamaha’s storied team director, and the factory’s inner circle—still smarting from the 2015 fallout—pulled the plug. Razali didn’t mince words in the doc: “Yamaha said no member of the Márquez family could ride for us. It was personal, tied to what happened with Marc in 2015.”

That “what happened” was the Sepang incident, MotoGP’s defining moment of acrimony. Heading into the 2015 Malaysian Grand Prix, Rossi led the championship over teammate Jorge Lorenzo by 11 points, with Marc Márquez, then a Honda prodigy, out of title contention but thriving in third. Rossi accused Márquez of deliberately crashing him out to hand the crown to Lorenzo, a claim fueled by on-track tussles and off-track mind games. In a race redolent with tension, Rossi lunged at Márquez late in proceedings, sending both tumbling. Márquez remounted to third; Rossi finished fourth and drew a penultimate-row start penalty for Valencia, where Lorenzo clinched the title. The paddock fractured: fans rioted in Valencia, Rossi labeled Márquez a “devil,” and Yamaha’s loyalty to their icon was cemented. To this day, Rossi calls it “unforgivable,” as he reiterated in a 2023 interview with The Race.

Alex, caught in the crossfire, became an unwitting casualty. “It was because of what happened between Marc and Valentino,” he told Pedrerol without equivocation. “They didn’t say it directly, but indirectly, yes. I paid for those broken plates—I had no guilt in it. These are things from the past.” The phrase “I paid for the dishes” has since become a viral MotoGP meme, symbolizing the innocent bystanders in elite rivalries. Instead of Yamaha blue, Alex debuted in MotoGP with Repsol Honda in 2020, thrust into the factory seat after Jorge Lorenzo’s abrupt retirement. It was a baptism by fire: alongside an injured Marc, Alex scored two podiums in a pandemic-shortened season but struggled with the RC213V’s quirks, finishing 13th overall—still ahead of Rossi’s lowly 15th on the factory Yamaha.

The fallout reshaped trajectories. SRT’s Moto2 seat went elsewhere, and their 2020 MotoGP lineup featured Morbidelli and the sidelined Rossi, who jumped ship from the factory team. Alex toiled at LCR Honda in 2021-2022, enduring anxiety-fueled off-seasons without a ride before finding solace at Gresini Ducati in 2023. There, he’s flourished: fourth in the 2024 standings with three wins, and entering 2025 as a title dark horse alongside Marc, now his teammate on the crimson Desmosedici. “Those moments built me,” Alex reflected. “The anxiety of not knowing where I’d race—it was brutal. But it taught resilience.”

Reactions have poured in, a mix of outrage and nostalgia. Marc, ever the protector, alluded to it in a Valencia presser last month: “Rivalries are part of the sport, but they shouldn’t touch family. Alex deserved better.” Quartararo, now a Yamaha alum turned Aprilia rider, tweeted support: “Talent like Alex’s crosses teams—politics shouldn’t block paths. Respect to him for speaking out.” Even Rossi’s camp stayed mum, though VR46 Academy riders like Marco Bezzecchi shared empathetic posts. Paddock insiders buzz about Yamaha’s current woes—a winless drought since 2022, Bagnaia’s Ducati defection looming—wondering if this ghost from the past underscores deeper cultural rigidities.

Razali, now steering RNF Yamaha, revisited the saga in a post-podcast statement: “It was a missed opportunity for all. Yamaha’s stance was firm, but time heals—or exposes.” Fans, divided as ever, flood forums: Rossi loyalists decry “sour grapes,” while Márquez supporters hail Alex’s candor as cathartic. On Reddit’s r/motogp, threads dissect the “what if,” with users lamenting a parallel universe where Alex dueled Quartararo on Yamahas.

As the 2025 season revs toward Qatar in March, this disclosure adds poignant layers to MotoGP’s narrative. It humanizes the grid’s gladiators, reminding us that behind the leathers lie brothers, not just rivals. Alex Márquez, once a pawn in a decade-old war, now stands tall—unscarred by “those dishes,” unbreakable on the bike. In a sport that devours the weak, his story is one of survival, a testament that grudges fade, but grit endures. Will Yamaha reflect and reform? Or does this chapter close the book on Sepang’s scars? Only the asphalt will tell.