Christian Horner sparks backlash with Marc Marquez comparison during MotoGP visit

Following his dismissal from the Formula 1 team with which he had won no fewer than 6 Drivers' and 8 Constructor's Championships, Christian Horner has been linked with a number of future roles including a potential return to F1.

Much like former Haas boss Guenther Steiner, who recently joined MotoGP as a co-owner for KTM's satellite Tech3 team, Horner expressed some interest in stepping across to the world of two wheels.

"I've got a bit of time on my hands so the MotoGP guys and Liberty guys kindly invited me to come and have a look," Horner explained to TNT Sports on the Jerez grid, "It's great to see how the sport is developing and of course [there's] common ownership with Formula 1 now."

"I've just come to learn a little bit more [...] just to 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."

It's safe to say there was a mixed reaction to Horner's appearance on the MotoGP grid with some responding positively, believing that more attention and higher profile figures will help the profile of the sport. Meanwhile, plenty were also critical of the fact that Horner didn't exactly have the cleanest past in Formula 1, with allegations of inappropiate conduct towards a female employee blighting his final years with the team.

Horner certainly didn't help matter when he visited the Ducati garage and made a comparison between 9x World Champion Marc Marquez and his former driver Max Verstappen, who has four titles.

"So he's your Verstappen?" said Horner, innocently enough, to which the Ducati bosses politely laughed along. But MotoGP fans can be notoriously tribalistic, and such comparisons certainly didn't go down well among Marquez's faithful supporters.

"He's not the max verstappen of motogp, HE IS MARC MÁRQUEZ of motogp. thats so disrespectful" Read one response.

"By the time Max entered F1 in 2015, Marc had already won two MotoGP championships. So I'd say it's the opposite." said another.

"Marc didnt carve his own path through the sport just to be called the Someone Else of another Sport like you just can't be serious.. you dead hate your own athletes." read yet another reply to Ducati's post.

It is clear to see that while there are many intersections between the worlds of MotoGP and Formula 1, there are also many differences too. Not just in terms of the racing and technicalities, but among the attitude of the fanbase as well. Liberty Media has already stepped on a few toes with their implementation of an increasingly long list of regulation changes, in addition to the removal of beloved historic tracks in favour of street racing.