On what was the last day of pre-season, Marc Márquez suffered his first fall since joining Gresini Racing, losing control of the Ducati during a race simulation. The incident was a consequence of pushing the limits of the bike that he is still getting to know.
The Spanish rider explained to the press: ‘Of course, you never want to fall and you want to stay on the bike. But it’s true that for example when I fell, I saw that I was going wide. I was entering too fast, but I thought, “Well, where is the limit of this bike?”. And then I did the long series with 12 laps and the plan was to reach 18 laps, more or less. But then I said, “There are five laps left, I’m going to try to increase the pace”. But maybe I increased it at a point where we can’t do it with this bike. So I lost the front in turn four. But it’s also important to understand that because until now I was riding very smoothly, consistently, but I had never attacked the last tenths’‘.
Márquez also said: ‘In races, we always say that the last three tenths are the hardest. So that’s where I am now: I’m two or three tenths, sometimes even four, behind the top riders and now we need to understand how to get closer‘.