Marc Márquez was relegated to the first qualifying session for the first time this MotoGP season. The Gresini rider couldn’t avoid a crash in the French MotoGP GP practice and finished only 13th, struggling with the handling of the Ducati.
These difficulties were openly acknowledged by the Spanish rider, stating: ‘It was the first Friday that was difficult. The other Fridays were easy, the pace was good, it was easy to go to Q2. But it is true that this is the first Friday where we have more difficulties and this can happen. So, now is the time to react and try to understand what we did, where we had more difficulties in my riding style and try to improve for tomorrow‘.
According to Márquez, it was the first crash due to excessive riding since he has been on a Ducati: ‘Today was the first crash due to excessive riding. You can even see in the images: today I was fighting against the bike. I wasn’t smooth enough, I wasn’t clean in the trajectories. And in the crash, I leaned too much. I was struggling to maintain the trajectories and then I leaned too much. So we need to understand well and try to understand how to improve for tomorrow‘.
The rear is the area identified as the cause of the complications, the rider mentioned: ‘I’m struggling because I’m pushing too much on the front because I don’t feel the rear. So we need to understand how to feel better with the rear. Especially with this bike, you need to extract all the potential from the rear, if you don’t, you have difficulties. And that’s what happened today‘.
In recent days, there have been more rumors about Márquez’s future, but he denied that this is the reason for the difficulties this Friday: ‘I am already 30 years old, and have been in MotoGP for 14 years, so I do not feel that pressure. The first Friday in which we have difficulties simply arrived and this can happen. So, it’s time to react, but I do not expect to have difficulties here in Le Mans, but it may happen, so now we need to understand where we are losing and what we need to do‘.
