It is no mystery now that qualifying represents the Achilles’ heel for Marc Marquez, which earlier this year he had described as “a nightmare”. In Mandalika the script repeated itself and, in Q2 which he had won directly, he slipped twice, not going beyond 12th position on the grid.
However, the Gresini driver was the author of one of his usual comebacks and, at the start of the Sprint, he gained eight positions in a few metres. Thus, also thanks to Jorge Martin who was out of action due to the fall, he quickly returned to the fight for victory. The eight-time world champion crossed the finish line in third place, an incredible result considering where he started from.
Although the comeback was one of the main themes of the Sprint in Mandalika, Marquez is not satisfied with it, on the contrary. The driver from Cervera is aware of the fact that tomorrow, in the long race, history will be different and he will be forced to repeat the feat if he wants to fight like today. So, if he doesn’t want to find himself pulling off comeback after comeback, he will have to improve his qualification.
“The departure? Nothing incredible, it’s good,” says the Gresini team driver. “I’m more focused on the mistake in qualifying, I have to work on it there. What happened in Sprint was good, we did our job. But I have to work on qualifying.”
Marc then goes into detail explaining the qualifying problem: “He pushes me in front, I can’t stop the bike well. My instinct is to bend the bike, but if I don’t bend it I don’t have good time. This is where we need to continue working. It’s also true that the first mistake was a bit strange, it came from behind me, but we have the same problem and we need to understand.”
Tomorrow he will start again from 12th place and the race promises to be complicated. Thus, Marquez sets himself realistic goals: “Tomorrow the goal is to try to be fifth or seventh. But in that group I think that by making a good start and trying to stay calm, we can fight. Then we’ll see, but the race will be very long. The best overtaking point is Turn 10, but it is also the point where it is easiest to make mistakes.”
It won’t be easy to recover positions and fight with the riders in front because the top three in the championship are very competitive. Bagnaia, with today’s victory, recovered points from Martin, who suffered a zero. But pay attention to Enea Bastianini, who carries with him the enthusiasm of Misano and even today, in the Sprint in Indonesia, he showed his claws. The Ducati rider took second position at the end, to the detriment of Marc: “The overtaking by Bastianini? Beautiful! I suck at T2, he knew it, he got close to me and overtook me.”
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