Marc Marquez has fueled his never-ending rivalry with Valentino Rossi by claiming that “it was better to pretend we were friends, but I hate pretending.”
Perhaps MotoGP’s fiercest verbal feud continues to this day, and in Honda racer’s book “Being Marc Márquez: This Is How I Win My Race” we can get a fresh look at it. Marquez looked back at the 2018 Argentine Grand Prix when he knocked out Rossi in one of his many infamous encounters. The Spaniard admitted he thought about playing nice:
“He has a lot of fans and that means going against them, but what choice do I have? To be unfaithful to myself? Of course not. I hate to pretend and be deceived. For tactical reasons, it was better to pretend to be Valentino’s boyfriend, but I’m not.”
Márquez also mentioned that his rookie year at Laguna Seca in 2013 didn’t penalize running off the track in going over the corkscrew, and even Rossi admitted it was similar to his own race against Casey Stoner in 2008 with his accomplishment.
Rossi “cleared” Gibernau out of the way in six seconds after calling him a mouse
“I’d be lying if I said I planned this maneuver. There was no intent or genius involved. I didn’t care at all who was in front of me, I didn’t even want to fight, I just got past us as fast as we could.”
Perhaps the ugliest moment between Rossi and Marquez was in 2015. Rossi publicly accused Marquez of trying to help Jorge Lorenzo win the championship.
In Malaysia, Marquez fell when they collided and later accused Rossi of kicking him.
“The fight between Valentino and I got so bad that we lost respect for each other. He was my hero and within a few months he became my rival and still is to this day. In 2015, between Australia and Malaysia, he accused me of ridiculous things and skipped the press conference. There was no conspiracy. Not at all. If someone is better than me, I respect that, but so that my opponent will not be affected if our relationship is not friendship because of it.”
