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Marquez expected bike swap at Brno, using soft tyres “my mistake”

MotoGP points leader Marc Marquez was expecting a flag-to-flag race at Brno in the Czech Grand Prix, which is why he started with the soft tyres and didn’t gamble on the longer-lasting hards.

Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team leads at the start

Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team leads at the start

Toni Börner

Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team in the pitlane
Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team
Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team
Race winner Cal Crutchlow, Team LCR Honda
Bike of Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team in the pitlane
Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

His Honda stablemate Cal Crutchlow won the race using the hard tyres front and rear, despite starting down in 10th.

However, Marquez was the first soft-rear user home in third place, and extended his points lead to 53, with Valentino Rossi now second ahead of Yamaha teammate Jorge Lorenzo, who trailed home outside the points after another dismal wet-weather showing.

“Honestly, I expect it to dry up earlier,” said Marquez. “For that reason I chose soft-soft, which meant in the last laps I was struggling more. That was my mistake.

“I expected a flag-to-flag race, so I was pushing a lot in the beginning to try to change the tyres to slicks, but the track was too wet. Then, I tried to manage.

“I knew Cal had hard-hard, Valentino with the hard rear, they overtake me when I was struggling a lot. The maximum for the championship was 16 points, and I’m very happy because we extend a lot over Jorge and lose only four to Valentino.”

"I knew the hard would be faster"

When asked about his tyre choice, Marquez believed taking the softs was the safer option as he protects his points advantage.

“Honestly it’s hard,” he admitted. “Today, I [thought about] taking a risk to go with hard, but I preferred to have the movement and warming of the soft, but I knew the hard would be faster but then you can lose the front really quick.

“It’s a [risk-averse] mentality at the moment which works, but the most important thing is that in wet conditions, dry conditions or flag-to-flag we are really strong and constant. We much keep like this.”

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