The Sprint MotoGP in Jerez left many regrets for Marc Marquez, who crashed just when he was leading and who seemed destined for victory. Jorge Martin admitted that he would not have won without his compatriot’s crash in turn 7. The Gresini Racing team rider then got back on his Ducati and managed to take sixth place, therefore 4 points. After taking pole position he also dreamed of success, but he will try again in the long race: he is one of the favourites.
MotoGP Jerez, Marquez’s regret
Despite the crash, the eight-time world champion is happy with the feeling he achieved with the Desmosedici GP23 and spoke about it to Sky Sport MotoGP: “I have a plan and it’s moving forward. Obviously, the plan is not to fall. It started in Qatar, then we went to Portimao and in Austin I made a click of intensity. When you click with intensity, then you take more risk and you’re there ahead. Now the speed is there, I have to work to manage all the moments well. Like in Austin, we managed to do the hardest thing and get the easiest thing wrong. However I am happy. Something is about to happen, but for the moment I’m falling and I have to work on it…“.
Marquez received a sanction for overtaking Joan Mir irregularly, with whom he came into contact which caused his former teammate to go wide: “It was a braking like the one Binder did to me, but I opened up and went long. I miscalculated and we had contact, like Brad had with Bagnaia at the first corner. I had to give a position back and to the stewards I said I agree“.
Marc also comments on the Binder-Bagnaia accident
Then Marquez went more specifically in talking about his action plan for this first season on a Ducati, confirming that he is working in the correct direction: “Before the plan was mine alone and it was about the fact of get out of the negative spiral that was thereI’m getting out of it now. To get out of it I tried to do two good weekends like Qatar and Portimao, and then push harder in Austin and Jerez. In Austin we found something, we changed the bike quite a bit and I feel much better. First I didn’t want to modify the bike too much, I just wanted to understand how to ride it and then adapt the setup to the riding style. My crew chief understood well what I was missing and we worked well. Here I continued with the same setup as Austin and I feel much better, but there are still things to work on“.
Pecco Bagnaia stated that there is an excess of aggression in sprint races and that drivers should have an approach more similar to that of long races. This is Marc’s thought: “It’s always been like this. Last year all the major crashes of the riders were in the sprints, even the contacts. It’s a type of race in which everyone runs very badly, because there are few laps that you have to do at full speed. For me today the commissioners did well. I took the penalty with Mir and it was right, because I made a mistake. The Binder-Bagnaia situation is difficult to evaluate, but nothing was done in Portimao, nothing could be done here…“.
Photo: MotoGP
