The MotoGP Portuguese GP didn’t end well for Marc Márquez, who due to a collision with Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) couldn’t translate a strong pace into results – as he fought the entire main race for the top five.
The Gresini Spaniard is satisfied with the improvements made in Portimão, despite the crashes: ‘It was a good weekend. We improved the speed, which is the most important thing. It’s true that I crashed three times in practice, but all three accidents – including in the warm-up – were… we can’t say stupid, but they were falls that I can avoid with more kilometers‘.
Márquez then explained why with more experience at Ducati he could have avoided the crashes: ‘Why? Because in qualifying I activated the rear device too early, it’s something that still needs to come more automatically. In the warm-up, my foot slipped off the footrest and then I fell, but without pushing – because it was my second lap and you can see that I did 1m41.5s on the first lap. So, I was just cruising, but my foot simply slipped and I fell. And on Friday the same’.
As for the race, the six-time MotoGP champion commented: ‘I was calm during the race. It’s true that the feeling with the front tire wasn’t the best, but no stress; I just waited for my moment. My moment came in the last laps, when I started to get faster and faster, and I was even improving my lap times because I feel better with used tires. But then came turn 5 and I fell [in the accident with Bagnaia]’.
