We determine the full automorphism group of two recently constructed families S q andR q of maximal curves over finite fields. These curves are cyclic covers of the Suzuki and Ree curves, and are analogous to the Giulietti-Korchmáros cover of the Hermitian curve. We show thatS q is not Galois covered by the Hermitian curve maximal over F q 4 , andR q is not Galois covered by the Hermitian curve maximal over F q 6 . Finally, we compute the genera of many Galois subcovers ofS q andR q ; this provides new genera for maximal curves.Lemma 13. The lifted group LR(q) contains a subgroupR(q) isomorphic to the Ree group Aut(R q ).Lemma 14. The normalizer of C m in Aut(R q ) is the direct productR(q) × C m .Corollary 15. The group LR(q) coincides with the normalizer of C m in Aut(R q ).