Marc Marquez takes on best bike racer in the world as MotoGP meets Tour de France

Marc Marquez is rarely second-best on two wheels, but hitting the roads with Tadej Pogacar powered only by their own legs for once put the reigning MotoGP champion at a disadvantage.

Marquez is far from the only MotoGP racer to also be a cycling fan. Cal Crutchlow and Jorge Martin are also among the most avid cyclists on the MotoGP grid, while HRC test rider Aleix Espargaro signed with professional team Lidl-Trek after his retirement from full-time racing.

Marquez and Pogacar’s ride together was primarily for publicity for Insta360, a sponsor of Marc Marquez himself and of Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates XRG, which was able to put its action cameras on the bikes of each of them to capture footage for a social media video.

The timing is also uncoincidental, since the Tour de France starts on Saturday (4 July) with its Grand Depart in Barcelona.

Pogacar himself is a four-time winner of the famous French grand tour, including victories in the last two editions. 

The Slovenien is ranked among the greatest cyclists of all-time thanks to his achievements not only in the grand tours but also in cycling’s one-day classic races, in which he has 13 career wins from 24 starts, as well as for other achievements such as winning the Tour de France and the world championship road race in the same year in two consecutive seasons (2024 and 2025). 

Naturally, he enters the 2026 Tour among the favourites, but his strongest rival, Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard, heads into the race off the back of a first career Giro d’Italia win that was wrapped up at the end of May.

Vingegaard’s Giro win means he has victories in all three cycling grand tours, something Pogacar is yet to achieve as he is missing a Vuelta de Espana victory.

Pogacar and Vingegaard have finished first and second in each of the last five Tours, with Pogacar winning in 2021, 2024, and 2025, while Vingegaard took the victory in 2022 and 2023.

Riding with Pogacar, then, Marquez was somewhat out-gunned by his riding partner – not something you can usually say about the Spaniard.

The Ducati Lenovo Team rider heads to Germany in a week and to the Sachsenring, his most successful track with nine MotoGP wins there and 12 across all grand prix classes, while chasing down a points deficit of 40 to Jorge Martin.

Were Marquez to erase that margin by the end of the season and be crowned MotoGP champion for the eighth time he would move level with Giacomo Agostini for premier class crowns and one clear of Valentino Rossi, also clearing the latter for world titles across all categories.

Marketing ploy or not, then, the meeting of Marc Marquez and Tadej Pogacar is one between two of the greatest to ever race on two wheels.