Álex Márquez joined Marc VDS in the Moto2 World Championship in 2015 and, while he aimed to contend for the title, 2018 marked one of the most turbulent moments in the team’s history. Owner Marc van der Straten and team manager Michael Bartholemy had a falling out, creating a lot of uncertainty and a tense internal environment.
Five years later, the Spanish rider revisited those events in an interview with DAZN: ‘In 2018, I expected something more and couldn’t maintain the consistency I needed at that time to fight for a championship. It’s true that 2018 was a very difficult year because there was some confusion within the team, and it destabilized not only me but the entire team’.
According to Márquez, there was a period where the dispute between directors made their participation uncertain: ‘Arriving at Mugello, not knowing if we had the trucks because there was a dispute between Marc VDS and Michael Bartholemy. We didn’t know if we would race in Mugello’.
The situation was eventually resolved, with van der Straten taking sole control of the team. However, #73 admitted that fundamental changes were made as a consequence: ‘After it was resolved, but in a way, everything was already tainted, so for 2019, we decided to make many changes in the team, and that’s when a key person for me arrived, called David García’.