Marc Marquez earns hero status after Jorge Lorenzo clash

If there were any lingering doubts about whether Marc Marquez was in MotoGP to stay, they were certainly answered during the last lap at Jerez on Sunday.

The 20-year-old showed that he is going to turn it into a right old battle this year as he barged past champion Jorge Lorenzo to take second place behind team-mate Dani Pedrosa.

It was a hard move, but just about a fair one and he has livened it up - which is exactly what we wanted.

We had been asking all winter if he would bring that aggressive style of racing from Moto2 to MotoGP and here was our answer. He doesn't care too much for his heroes, there wasn't much in the way of manners there but why should there be?

It's racing. He now leads the world championship. The boy has no manners, he's like a kid who puts his feet up on the seat on a train and doesn't care.

He didn't cross the line. It was very hard, very tough, people will look at it and talk about it but Jorge made a mistake to let him in.

Jorge said himself in the post-race news conference that if he had come out of turn 12 on the left-hand side, it wouldn't have been the optimum line but he could have defended his position.

As it was he left a hole for Marquez and the kid took it. In the last corner it's who dares wins time - and Marquez dared.

All the lads have gone through the classes and there's plenty of pushing and shoving in the smaller categories, but often in MotoGP there is more respect for each other and sometimes there is too much.

It was a move reminiscent of Valentino Rossi on Sete Gibernau in 2005, and I would have criticised Marquez if he hadn't had a go. He was clearly faster in the closing stages.

Five years ago the King of Spain had to get Jorge and Dani to speak, and we may need him to get involved again now to get Marc and Jorge talking again!

Marquez is also seemingly winning the race off the track.

There was a massive crowd at Jerez of over 110,000 and there was as big a gathering outside Marquez's pit garage as Rossi's. I've never seen anybody compete with Rossi for attention before. Marquez is the new Spanish hero.

Whenever he went through the paddock there was a screaming throng of people chasing after him like you see with Rossi. I've never seen that with Lorenzo or Pedrosa.

Rossi and Cal Crutchlow both rode well and the top five are very strong this season. We are in for a very competitive title race. Bring on Le Mans!

Steve Parrish was talking to BBC Sport's Tom Rostance