Alex Marquez accuses Bagnaia: “He could have avoided the accident by leaving me a meter”

The Incident of Discord

Alex Marquez he was repeating the excellent Sprint of Saturday – closed in fourth place – also in the Sunday race, where he was in third place until five laps from the end. A mistake by the Spaniard, who went wide on a bend, led to an attempted overtaking by Pecco Bagnaia, who slipped in on the inside. However, the trajectories of the two crossed, with Alex Marquez hitting the world champion, hooking himself onto his bike. Both riders thus ended up in the gravel their respective races, risking injury in the contact.

Alex Marquez’s version on Sky

“The race had been pretty good up to that point. I went a little long in Turn 12, but I was still in. When I changed direction for 13, my body was already on the right and I didn’t see anyone. Pecco closed the line a lot and when the contact occurred I don’t know if I partially throttled or what I did. I was seeing that we were going against the wall. He says he saw on the telemetry that I had a partial lap, but I was there and I didn’t even know what to do. I was just trying to stay on the bike and avoid the wall.. If anyone could avoid that contact, it was him, who had seen me. He didn’t have to close, he just had to leave me a meter and no one would have fallen.

I understand that he is playing for the world championship and that he wanted to attack there, because it was a good opportunity for him to get on the podium. I’m sorry that the race ended there. It’s not true that I sent him to hell, it never happened. I know he’s angry, but I’m not. I understand his situation and that he wants to win the world championship and I respect that. I’ve always had a lot of respect for Pecco, I know him well and he didn’t have an easy weekend. He didn’t apologize to me and I didn’t apologize to him. I think it was a little bit his fault, he thinks it’s my fault. When something like this happens, there are two versions. If we talk, it obviously won’t be in front of the cameras.
I didn’t know it was Pecco, I never put any name on the board and that’s the first thing. In that braking I had lost a tenth, it’s not like I went on the green. I didn’t know he was there, I didn’t see him anywhere in the change of direction. If I had the opportunity to avoid contact, I would have done so, but that was not the case.”