Constant Honda MotoGP crashes “difficult on the mental side” – Marquez

Honda has endured a miserable 2023 season on its troubled bike, with a win from LCR’s Alex Rins in Austin and a sprint podium in Portugal for Marquez the only highlights.

At Mugello, Joan Mir was forced to withdraw from the weekend after a crash in practice, while Rins has to have surgery on a broken leg he suffered in an incident in the sprint contest.

Marquez, who was seventh in the sprint, ran in the podium battle in Sunday’s grand prix having started second but crashed out on lap six of 23 while running in fourth.

It marked the third grand prix crash of the season for Marquez, after tumbling out of the French GP while running second and breaking his thumb in a Portugal smash.

Asked if he could be confident heading to his stomping ground at the Sachsenring next weekend given Honda's current form, Marquez said: “We will see. We don’t arrive at Sachsenring in our best moment.

“We are coming from a very difficult moment and it will be hard, even if it’s Sachsenring.

“So we will arrive there and we will try to have our weekend and on Saturday we will understand where we are.

“But here and Le Mans was the same, we were closer than what we expected. But the problem is we are taking a lot of risks.

“The problem is we crashed one more time.

“It’s difficult on the mental side, but I keep going, I keep pushing and I don’t care about the rest. I just keep going for myself because I know what I can do, I did it in the past and I hope that I can do it in the future.”

Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

While crashes have been all too common for Honda riders this year, Marquez admits his Mugello GP exit was unexpected.

“I didn’t expect to finish the race like that, especially that early because I was trying to control a lot during this race,” he added.

“I used the soft [rear] tyre but I didn’t attack at the beginning to keep the tyre [fresh]. I knew that my position was sixth, seventh and I was already [riding] better.

“But I already had a problem at the start, I lost a lot of positions – not for my mistake, it was a problem we already had yesterday [in the sprint].

“Then the crash, I had a big shake… already in the first lap I had a big lock at Turn 10 where I nearly crashed and I didn’t understand it, similar to Portimao.

“But then I had another locking in Turn 15 on the brakes, and then I went wide and when I was wide that is where I made the mistake. I was on the dirty part, I was out of the line and I lost the front.”