Surprisingly, Alex Marquez was announced as a Repsol Honda rider in 2019 the next year after Jorge Lorenzo’s no less surprising resignation was announced in November. Days later the # 73 was testing an LCR Honda RC213V, but it wasn’t until later that it got the chance to see the official team’s bike in its colors.
On Nico Abad’s Twitch channel, the Spaniard remembered his first contact with his motorcycles and said that when he saw his Repsol Honda RC213V for the first time, he took a picture that he had not shown to anyone else:
– I have two moments that I remember. The first was in 2019, at the end when this whole puzzle was formed: Lorenzo retired, I’m leaving, I’m doing my first training at LCR Honda instead of [Takaaki] Nakagami and the bike was black … it was beautiful. But when I first saw Repsols # 73, I shivered. I went to the wind tunnel in Japan, made an escape and I remember even my mechanics built the bike and before I left I went there. And I saw it for the first time. I took a picture and kept it to myself, I didn’t show it to anyone else.