Marc Marquez: A younger team-mate will beat me, that's life

Until then, the eight-time world champion will try to delay the inevitable fate of a sportsman for as long as he can. The only alternative would be to retire early, without fulfilling his full potential.

Marquez, who turned 30 earlier this month, has never been beaten in the world championship standings by a team-mate over a full season - without missing races due to injury - since his 125cc debut in 2008.

Great rival Valentino Rossi lasted until his 14th premier-class year before finally being defeated by a team-mate over a complete season, Jorge Lorenzo in 2013. Rossi previously lost out to the Spaniard in 2010, when he broke his leg.

• Marquez to Mir: If one Repsol Honda rider cannot win, the other must!
• FIRST LOOK: Marquez, Mir present 2023 Repsol Honda livery
• Marc Marquez: I heard the rumours, I have a contract with Honda

Injuries have also marred Marquez’s attendance over the past three years. In 2020 he only entered one race, but he still managed to finish as the top Honda in both 2021 and 2022 despite skipping 12 rounds and riding - in the words of team manager Alberto Puig - with “only one-arm-and-a-half”.

Having seen off the challenge of past Repsol Honda team-mates Dani Pedrosa (2013-2018), Jorge Lorenzo (2019) and Pol Espargaro (2021-2022), Marquez will now be teamed with Joan Mir for his eleventh premier-class campaign.

It will be only the second time, after Lorenzo, that Marquez has been alongside a fellow MotoGP champion. But while Lorenzo was five years old than Marquez, Mir is five years younger.

Asked what he thinks of Mir, Marquez replied: “A world champion in MotoGP and a rider with so much talent and discipline. I’ve seen him training and he has many skills and that will help to adapt to the bike.

“He is a great competitor in the team and a strong team-mate that I hope will also make me grow."

Marquez, who has always maintained he never interferes with Honda's choice of riders, added: “In the Repsol Honda team you will always have strong team-mates and the function of the team manager and Honda in general is to have two winning riders.

"This all helps to raise the level in the box.”

'The law of life: A younger team-mate will beat you'

So could this be the season where Marquez, the only Honda rider to win MotoGP races since 2018, is pushed to another level by his team-mate?

“This is the law of life: you’ll arrive at a moment when a younger team-mate will beat you,” Marquez said. “In football you are the unquestionable first choice one minute and the next you are the substitute. This happens. The rough side of sport.

“My work and my objective is to delay this as much as possible and for as many years as I can. But clearly when you have a team-mate like Joan that has won races, a championship in MotoGP and another in Moto3 then it becomes complicated.

“But I welcome ‘the problem’ because it means we’ll both be fighting for positions further forward and that’s important.”

Marquez and Mir finished tenth and twelfth on the timesheets during the Sepang test earlier this month. Their final pre-season outing will be at Portimao on March 11-12.