Marquez’s MotoGP Catalan GP a “drive to survive” on Honda

The Honda rider took a bold gamble on the soft rear tyre for last Sunday’s grand prix at Barcelona and ended up as top HRC runner in 13th.

Marquez notes he tried to push in the early stages to see if he could keep pace with the group ahead of him battling for sixth headed by his brother Alex Marquez on the Gresini Ducati.

But he saw “immediately I was over the limits” and elected to simply “survive” the race.

“Tried to survive. Drive to survive,” Marquez commented on his grand prix.

“I mean, it was a race that I started and immediately I was trying to manage the tyres front and rear.

“So, I tried to check the feeling, manage the tyres and saw many riders overtook me.

“Then I decided to push for two, three, four, five laps, behind that second group that was my brother, [Fabio] Quartararo, [Jack] Miller.

“But immediately I saw I was over the limits, over the limit of the bike and then I started to destroy the front tyre too much. So, I decided to just finish the race and get back to my box.”

Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Marquez showed flashes of pace at Barcelona, qualifying 12th having come through Q1 and battled inside the top seven in the sprint before fading to 11th – though still remaining the top Japanese bike rider.

Asked if he felt he was in a separate championship battle to be the best rider on a Japanese bike, Marquez added: “For me it’s not important. Just today the global picture for me was I finished 21 seconds behind the top guy and this [closing that down] is my target for the future, and we are every far.

“Yesterday [Saturday] I was able to more or less do a good sprint race and good qualy.

“Today [Sunday] was time for [Fabio] Quartararo to do a great race [on the Yamaha].

“But in our garage we suffered too much. You can save [a result] in a single lap, in a 10-lap race, more or less.

“But for a long race distance, if you don’t have the pace you don’t have the pace.”