MotoGP | Marquez: “Pecco and Martin make the difference, not GP24”

Marc Marquez arrived at the second race at Misano as the favorite, his victory two weeks ago had raised his hopes for the championship, but over the weekend of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix the Gresini rider returned to invoke calm, not only with words but also with his action on the track. Having fallen in the final free practice session this morning at Carro, the eight-time world champion slipped again in qualifying, when he was fighting for the front row.

“Life is like that, you try and fail, you try and fail, you try and fail,” Marc said with a smile, not afraid to take the risk of falling in order to improve. “The problem is that our tests are done in front of millions of people. But I will continue to try until I succeed and I am willing to take that risk.”

So, Marc did not go beyond the seventh position in qualifying, but in the Sprint he managed to come back up to the fourth final position. According to the rider from Cervera, it is the best he could have achieved in a situation of clear superiority of the others: “I have been saying this for practically every race and I do not change the argument, because I always look at reality, the data and telemetry: they have something more. It is true that when four drops fall or the track is slippery we manage to save the situation a little, but they have more. Today I started from the third row and I finished fourth, but if I had started from the front row I would have finished fourth anyway, because this is our pace and it is also the goal for tomorrow, which is not a bad position”.

“For me, being the first after those on the podium is not what I want, my goal is to fight with the first, I have a competitive bike, we have won races, and my goal is not to be the first GP23, it is to be with the first and that is why I continue to try. When you accept in your head that you have a bike from the previous year you start to have doubts, and I don’t have them and I don’t want to have them”, Marc explained with great frankness but also with great determination.

Once again, Pecco Bagnaia and Jorge Martin made the difference on everyone else, even on Enea Bastianini, who finished the Sprint in third position: “To be able to win, should Bagnaia and Martin make mistakes? Yes. They make the difference, not the GP24. They are strong, they go fast, they know the bike, they have it in their hands especially when the track has a lot of grip, because they did a race lap as fast as my qualifying lap. This means they get more potential and feel comfortable. I was behind doing 31 low and I decided not to push further. Even so I made a mistake by going wide at turn 13. They go faster”.

“The goal is always the same as in every race, it is true that we come from two weekends of victories and this gives you the confidence to try more and make more mistakes, yes. If you look this morning in Q2 I made the same mistake as last week (crash) but because I tried, I can’t stay there without trying. And this is exactly what gives you the confidence to try more things, if it doesn’t work, you accept it, you learn and next time I’ll try again,” concluded Marquez.