Spectacular duel with Bastianini
Marc Marquez finished the Motegi Sprint race in third place, beaten only by the two Ducatis of Pecco Bagnaia’s official team and Enea Bastianini. Precisely with the Beast the star of the Gresini team was the protagonist of one splendid duel that ignited the final laps of the race. After a series of overtaking and counter-overtaking the Italian eventually prevailed, but this didn’t stop the #93 from having fun during the battle.
“I overtook Enea at turn 9, but then he had the inside at turn 10 – explained Marquez to the microphones of Sky Sports MotoGP after the race – at that point we had a motocross-type duel, which I like, but then at the braking point at turn 11 I saw that it arrived in parallel and had the inside. At that point I tried to let go of the brakes, but he had the right position to maintain that position. During the last lap he defended very well and I didn’t have the chance to try again. He took a step forward in terms of speed and was going very fast“.
Big improvement compared to Friday
However, even for Marquez, compared to yesterday, the step forward was notable: “Friday was a very strange day for us – recognized the former Honda rider – we had a lot of problems and I only had one strong lap, which was what got us into Q2. The team did a great job today. The speed was already visible in qualifying, we were strong”. On the episode of the canceled pole lap, which also saw him do a small controversy on social mediaMarquez explained: “There was confusion with the communication arriving late. I didn’t know if I had touched the green dot or not and when I saw that they weren’t canceling my tour I said to myself ‘ok, I won’t risk it anymore because with that weather I’m definitely in the front row’. Instead there was this connection error, as they justified themselves, and the notification arrived late. In any case, I was focused on the Sprint and did a race trying to find my rhythm”.
The duel between Ducati however, according to Marquez, was not decided by the differences that exist between GP23 and GP24: “My bike is fine, it certainly has pros and cons, while Bastianini’s is different from mine, but in the end the characteristics of the bikes are the same – commented Marquez – mine is working very well this weekend. The disadvantage is that we started ninth and in the end we arrived with the tire at its limit, while he defended very well. Some battles are won, others are not. Today he won because he was able to defend very well. We will have to understand tomorrow or this afternoon from the riders who used the medium more to understand what to do with the latter, but the soft can give much more at the start of the race“.
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