The bomb burst at the Spielberg GP: Marc and Alex Márquez ended their collaboration with manager Alzamora with immediate effect following almost 20 years. His successor: Jaime Martínez from Red Bull in Spain.
When the Spaniard Emilio Alzamora, discoverer and manager of Marc and Alex Márquez, stayed away from the Silverstone GP, there was still talk of a corona infection. But the 1999 125cc World Champion was also absent from the Austrian GP and it is now clear that Alzamora will retire as manager of the Márquez brothers following around 20 years.
At the latest at the Aragón GP (September 17/18), Jaime «Jimmy» Martínez, who is now working at Red Bull in Madrid/Spain as «Head of Motorsports Marketing», will assume this function. He previously made a name for himself as a professional wakeboarder. The 34-year-old was in Spielberg on Thursday and Friday and then flew back to Spain with Marc Márquez in the evening.
The relationship between Alzamora, the Márquez family and the Honda Racing Corporation has suffered noticeably over the past two years. There were disagreements regarding the comeback following breaking the first humerus on July 19, 2020, which Alzamora later made public at the Misano GP.
Jaime Mártinez has gained Marc Márquez’s trust in his role at Red Bull, and the age difference may also play a role, as Alzamora is now 49 years old.
Alzamora not only made Alex Márquez Moto3 World Champion in his own Estrella Galicia 0,0 Honda team, he previously ran his own Moto3 team for Marc Márquez in 2011 and 2012 and accompanied the exceptional talent in his second year to win the title.
In addition, Alzamora, who didn’t win a single GP on his way to the 1999 World Championship title, spent a lot of effort running the Monlau Junior Academy for years. As managing director, Alzamora also headed the “Monlau Repsol Technical School”. From 2012, she trained young mechanics and engineers for motorcycle and car sports teams at the highest level. 60 percent of the graduates made a successful entry into working life. More than a hundred of the former students are now working at the highest level in the MotoGP World Championship or Formula 1. In 2015, no fewer than 238 students were in the first and second level courses. Another 30 students have already completed master’s courses.
The managerial activities of the controversial Alzamora held some disadvantages for the Márquez family. When Alex Márquez was fighting for the Moto2 title at Marc VDS in 2019, Petronas Yamaha Team Principal Razlan Razali wanted to bring him to his Petronas Sprinta Moto2 team and promote him to MotoGP in 2021.
But Petronas-Yamaha might not and would not give Alex Márquez a MotoGP job guarantee for 2021. The Spaniard might have taken Fabio Quartararo’s place alongside Franco Morbidelli back then.
“What Petronas does in Moto2 is not our issue,” Yamaha race director Lin Jarvis told SPEEDWEEK.com in August 2019. “But at Yamaha we haven’t thought regarding the MotoGP rider line-up for 2021 yet.”
What nobody said at Yamaha for diplomatic reasons: Yamaha strictly rejected a MotoGP deal with Alex Márquez. Because Emilio Alzamora, the 1999 125cc World Champion, also managed Marc Márquez and had an extremely close relationship with Honda Motor Corporation for more than ten years. He has been in the Repsol Honda pits continuously since 2013.
However, Yamaha Motor Racing didn’t want to have an HRC spy in the garage or risk Alex Márquez one day divulging all of Yamaha’s long-term technical plans and secrets back home at the family table in Cervera. Marc and Alex live under the same roof, live and train together – and their manager Alzamora was in and out of HRC until the Assen GP at the end of June.
The HRC executives needed him because what they want most is to keep Marc Marquez happy and with Honda for all eternity. Alzamora even negotiated a four-year contract for Marc at HRC in 2020 until the end of 2024, there is talk of an annual fee of around 15 million euros. The manager usually collects a commission of 10 to 15 percent.
“Two brothers in two hostile Japanese factory teams, that would be a very strange situation in this MotoGP world,” said a Yamaha team member at the time. “Therefore, there is no place for a Márquez brother.”
For this reason, Yamaha vetoed the commitment and a preliminary contract of the Moto2 rider for 2021.
With Alex Márquez riding at Gresini Ducati in 2023 and Marc at Repsol-Honda, the Alzamora issue may have come back by now. That may have been one of several reasons for ending the collaboration.
Jaime Martínez has no past as an active motorcyclist. So he will rarely be in the boxes of his teams and because of his sporting background as a wakeboarder he won’t be able to divulge any great technical secrets.
