Last Sunday, Marc and Álex Márquez simultaneously achieved a podium finish for the first time in the same race – Marc finished second and Álex took third place at the MotoGP German GP.
Seeing brothers compete in the premier class is not unprecedented. Just last year, there were two pairs of brothers on the starting grids – besides Álex and Marc, Aleix and Pol Espargaró also competed.
What is much rarer is for brothers to share the podium in the same premier class race. The last time this happened before Sunday was in 1997, back in the 500cc era.
At that year’s Imola GP, Nobuatsu Aoki secured second place behind a dominant Mick Doohan, while his brother Takuma finished third – a very similar feat to that of the Márquez brothers at Sachsenring.
Although both rode Honda bikes, they had different specifications, with Takuma competing in the factory team and Nobuatsu in an independent team. Interestingly, Nobuatsu finished higher in the championship standings, securing third place.