Marc Marquez completed a flawless lap, the fastest ever of the weekend so far, in the final of Q2. That time led him to be the poleman of the Portuguese Grand Prix. But just before that lap ended, his team-mate Pol Espargaro crashed in the final part of the circuit, where the yellow flags were displayed. Therefore Marc’s lap was canceled and he relegated to ninth position on the grid.
“Luck wasn’t on our side today, but that’s part of the game. They canceled my lap for a yellow flag, today it happened to me, but next time it can happen to someone else ”, began Marquez with sportiness. “The important thing is that the speed was there and that when I wanted to push the time it went out”.
“Tomorrow we will have to have some luck with the basic setup with which we will do the warm-up and the choice of tires. On these details we must have a bit of luck if we want to opt for something in the race. Starting from ninth it will be more difficult, but the first laps will tell us how far we can go, ”said the Honda rider.
In addition to the lap canceled in qualifying, during this morning’s FP3 held in wet conditions, Marc Marquez was the protagonist of a strong crash that immediately caused fear given the precedents. The Catalan, however, reassured him about his condition: “I’m fine, I just have a little pain in my neck, I’m a bit stiffer than normal, but I have no problems”.
This fall, however, can be positive because it shows that it does not necessarily mean that he has vision problems every time he ends up on the ground: “No fall is necessary, but when I was in Austin the first thing I asked the doctor was if it could happen again. if you fell hitting your head. He replied that the risk was the same now or a year from now. I hit it today, but it was a normal, more standard fall. Like when you fall and hit an arm or a helmet, I wear it for it. We saw the difference in how I got up in Indonesia, where I was sick, and today, when I got back on the bike and went back to the garage ”.
Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
After a full weekend in wet conditions, the forecasts give a dry race: “Tomorrow we cannot face with a result in the lead, after the warm-up we will be able to guess a little more where we can finish, if it does not rain. . However, it is very difficult to foresee a dry race at the moment. After having done all the tests in the wet, if you suddenly arrive at a dry race it is difficult to understand where you can finish. So you can’t have a clear goal, I don’t think anyone has it ”.
However, the uncertainty does not detract from the Honda rider’s ambitions: “Obviously I will start aiming for the maximum, which does not mean winning. It means making a good start, trying to catch up and get in the top positions, that is, in the top five. From there we will see where we can get. It’s a bit of an improvisation, we will start with the bike we did the last race with, I think everyone will do that. Let’s see what happens, we have no references with this bike. Let’s see if we are lucky and if the bike works like in Austin, which is the track where I felt best ”.
Marc will start from ninth position on the starting grid, like in Austin, where he had a mechanical problem that caused him to lose many positions, something that won’t bother him tomorrow on the reconnaissance lap: “When there is a problem, it’s a lot important to find and fix it. I can’t say what the problem was, but, in quotes, it was something that could have been avoided and this situation cannot be repeated, because they have done a different management. It is true that something else can happen, but you never start thinking that something can happen ”.
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