Valencia MotoGP: Spain needs to help “people that lost their house”, not circuit - Marc Marquez

Marc Marquez and Alex Marquez have both spoken on the developing situation in Valencia, which has this week been hit by destructive flooding.

At the time of writing, the death toll for the Valencian floods, which hit on the night of Tuesday 29 October as Spain was hit by a DANA weather system, stands at 92, with two people having also died in Castilla La Mancha to the west of Valencia, and another death has been recorded in Malaga.

In addition to the human toll of the floods, buildings, roads, and other infrastructure have also been damaged or destroyed, including the entrance road to the Circuit Ricardo Tormo, the Valencian circuit which is due to host the final round of the 2024 MotoGP World Championship in two weeks’ time.

For Marc Marquez, the facilities of the Valencia circuit should not be the priority of government efforts to rebuild the areas affected by the flooding.

“Spain, especially Valencia, [Storm] Dana hit a lot especially the Valencia area,” Marquez said ahead of this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix.

“As a Spanish person, it’s super-difficult to see this kind of images, and theoretically we have a GP there.

“But now I think all the facilities of the government, of Spain, need to go for those people that lost their house, even we lose already 100 [people] I read last night.

“We need to understand well the situation, but all the facilities need to go for those people. I mean, I see the damage of the circuit in Valencia, but it [makes no sense] to start to repair those things while having many people without a house. So, let’s see what they will do.”

<H2>Alex Marquez: “Difficult” to see a race at Valencia in two weeks

Marquez’s brother and Gresini teammate, Alex Marquez, echoed the opinion of the eight-times World Champion.

“It’s not the time I think to see if there will be a GP there or not,” he said.

“Now, everything and all the facilities need to be with the people that are there, that don’t have a home, many deaths, many losses.

“It’s difficult. It’s not easy for all the Spanish people but especially for the Valencian people. So we will see how it will be, but now we cannot just focus to try to put everything correct for the facilities of the track, more important is the people that don’t have a home or lose family, than thinking if we have a GP there or not.”

Alex Marquez added that he felt it was “difficult” to think that there will be a race at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in two weeks’ time, with the Grand Prix paddock set to arrive there around one-and-a-half weeks after this weekend’s penultimate round of the season in Malaysia.

“Honestly speaking, to think that there will be a GP there in one-week-and-a-half is difficult,” he said.

“We need to be realistic, and we need to be human. For me, it’s not correct if we go there in one-week-and-a-half, and we try to put correct the entry of the circuit and all that.

“More important things are there, and it’s the families, the people.”