The Christian Horner curse? MotoGP champion crashes after F1 chief's Max Verstappen comparison

Horner in de MotoGP: "Deze coureurs zijn krankzinnig in wat ze doen" — Photo: © IMAGO

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The Christian Horner curse? MotoGP champion crashes after F1 chief's Max Verstappen comparison

Marc Marquez crashed out of the Spanish Grand Prix with surprise error

Dan Ripley Global Editor

Professional F1 journalist and analyst

Monday 27 April 2026 08:59

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When you are called the Max Verstappen of your sport you have some big expectations to meet, clumsily crashing out isn't one of them.

Now to be fair to Christian Horner, when he called Marc Marquez 'the Max Verstappen of MotoGP', he had good reason to do so.

The Spanish racer is one of the greatest motor racing stars of the era. Marquez has won nine world titles including seven in MotoGP (he is the current world champion), and if you need something to measure that against then he has an identical record to Valentino Rossi (I'll stop there before we go back to Sepang 2015 chat.)

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Marc Marquez: Hero to zero

So it wouldn't have raised just Horner's eyebrows when near the end of the second lap of the MotoGP Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez, Marquez clumsily crashed sliding out onto the gravel putting him out of the race.

Or maybe Horner has played us all for fools given, like Verstappen, a great champion has had a very frustrating start to 2026. It was Marquez's second retirement from just four grands prix and he has yet to bag a podium, leaving him fifth in the championship and a lot of work to do to catch series leader Marco Bezzecchi who finished second in Jerez behind Marc's brother Alex.

Horner was a surprise guest in the Jerez paddock over the weekend as a guest of Liberty Media, and was seen in discussions with Honda chiefs during sessions and by doing so pouring more fuel on the fire of the rumours he is interested in linking up with Aston Martin, who are powered by Honda.

Horner to MotoGP?

The former Red Bull chief who helped power Verstappen to all four of his F1 world championships was keen to play down any rumours over moves to F1 or even MotoGP,

"I have time on my hands," he told TNT Sports. "So the MotoGP guys and liberty guys kindly invited me to come and have a look. And I've always been a fan. I think it was Estoril 2005 was the last time I was at a MotoGP race. It's great to come and see how the sports doing and developing and, of course, common ownership with Formula One now.

"I've just come to learn a little bit more, and while I've got some time just explore other forms of motorsport, which I didn't have time to do previously. I'm liking what I see but there's always going to be speculation."

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