Honda’s Technical Manager Takeo Yokoyama has described Marc Marquez as “somebody from another planet” after the Catalan wrapped up his sixth MotoGP championship in Thailand by adapting “his riding style to take maximum profit from the bike.”

Valentino Rossi "has perhaps hung around a little bit too long" in MotoGP according to his long-time crew chief Jeremy Burgess.

Veteran engineer Burgess (pictured above with Rossi in 2009) was by Rossi's side for all seven of his premier class titles, the two working alongside each other from 2000 up until the end of 2013.

For the 2014 campaign, Rossi made the decision to shake up his crew and Burgess made way for Silvano Galbusera - who in turn will be replaced at the end of this season.

Rossi is enduring a difficult campaign on the works Yamaha, having slipped to seventh in the standings - behind team-mate Maverick Vinales and the satellite Petronas SRT Yamaha of star rookie Fabio Quartararo.

The 40-year-old has started on the front row only twice this year, and has an average grid slot of 8.5, compared to Vinales' 4.5 and Quartararo's 3.9.

"He has perhaps hung around a little bit too long," Burgess said. "The concerning thing is, and the sad thing for me is, he is finishing about where he qualifies.

"We never used to worry if he qualified 10th a few years ago, we knew he would pick up four or five spots and be on the podium or challenging for the podium.

"Whether that is another step down the slippery slope or not, who knows?"

Rossi suffered his first DNF since the Dutch TT in June during last weekend's Japanese GP at Motegi, where he was running 11th until he crashed at Turn 1.

"It's a bit difficult because, after a few fairly good races, we've had more problems in the last few races," reflected the Italian, who is without a podium since April's Austin race.

"Unfortunately I made a mistake today, but we'd like to be quicker to fight for better positions. It was a difficult race because my pace was not great.

"My potential could have been to be with [Alex] Rins and [Cal] Crutchlow [in the fight for fifth], but at the start I was already behind on the grid and then I lost some positions even on the first lap, so I wasn't so great to be able to get back on track."

There’s a pretty common assumption that racing drivers and motorcycle riders aren’t actually athletes in the sense that a machine does most of the work for them. Bunk. As a counterargument, I present to you: Alex Marquez’s frankly ridiculous upper body strength as he saves his bike from imminent disaster at the Moto2 Japanese Grand Prix.

Just stop whatever you’re doing and allow your mind to be blown as all your meager fitness goals crumble before the sight of a true strength god:

Alex Marquez—younger brother of the ridiculously talented Marc Marquez—is currently dominating the Moto2 standings. But during the third free practice session of the Japanese GP weekend, the younger Marquez had a little slip

As in, he was launched out of his seat entirely after the rear end of his bike slipped out on the wet track surface.

But that didn’t faze Marquez in the slightest. In fact, he kept his grip on the handlebars and managed to bring his body back down next to the bike and balancing there in order to avoid a crash. And as if that wasn’t absurd enough, he maintained that balance all the way to back to the pit wall, where he was able to remount and get back out there for the rest of the session

I have spent quite literally every single year since my sophomore year of high school trying to build the upper body #gains to do more than a single pull-up at a time. I have not been successful. And then here’s one of the Marquez brothers, putting me to shame and proving once again that they are actually the most capable family of motorcyclists in the entire freakin’ world.

Lewis Hamilton may have crashed Valentino Rossi's MotoGP bike at the Valencia circuit this week.

The pair swapped their Mercedes and Yamaha machines for a promotional event organised by mutual sponsor Monster, but the media was locked out and no official information whatsoever has been forthcoming.

But two Italian newspapers are reporting information unofficially.

La Repubblica said the event took place over eight hours, and that information including photos and footage should be released shortly.

The report said the event went "very well" for both sportsmen who were "as happy as children".

But Corriere dello Sport claims that Hamilton actually crashed Rossi's Yamaha on his MotoGP track debut, even though there were "no consequences" for the six-time world champion.

While a host of major sporting events, including the MotoGP season opener in Qatar and the following Thailand Grand Prix, have been called off because of coronavirus, the latest news from Australia is that F1 is pushing on with its season opener on March 15.

But amid a quickly developing situation, especially with Italy being the source of a major outbreak of the virus, there is a risk that some team personnel could yet struggle to make it to the early season races if travel bans or strict quarantine rules are put in place.

It was Qatar's decision to quarantine Italian citizens for 14 days on arrival in the country that prompted MotoGP to call off its race there, despite series organisers Dorna Sports initially putting plans in place for all paddock personnel to avoid this.