Marc Márquez finished today’s Sprint for the Thai GP in fourth position, although he initially expected a better result, on the podium. He admitted he didn’t expect to see Enea Bastianini so strong, and also commented on the move he managed to make up to the dangerous Jorge Martín at the start of the race.
Was it the limit of the Desmosedici GP23 today, the press asked the Gresini rider, to which he replied: ‘I was expecting to finish third because I wasn’t counting on [Enea] Bastianini, but he was the fastest. In qualifying he was fast but in the practice with the used tire he was even struggling but in the race it was the opposite and he was super fast and consistent’.
Although he could have tried to be faster, Márquez admitted that the position he finished in was the “real” one considering what happened on the track: ‘We finished fourth, and it’s true that if I had taken more risks I could have been closer but still in fourth, but I saw that the position was that and tomorrow we will try to repeat. We are fast in the corners and in turns 3 and 4 we are fast and I feel comfortable but we have to understand where the others are with the hard rear tire’.
When asked if the moment with Jorge Martín at the beginning of the race, at turn 1, was scary or not, given the proximity of a touch with the #89, Márquez clarified:
– I saw the images and it was like that. I predicted that move [on his part]: he went off track and luckily I didn’t because I predicted he would come back, but he came in an optimistic way, but luckily I predicted that move of his a little and nothing happened and he accelerated. It’s better however if you go off track, you come back later because you have space in that corner.