Marc Marquez has explained why he didn’t hunt down MotoGP champion Francesco Bagnaia for the final spot on the British Grand Prix podium, saying his crash in the sprint was still weighing on him.
Gresini rider Marquez was running in fourth place in the final five laps of the Silverstone MotoGP race, with Ducati rival Bagnaia the only hurdle between him and a fifth rostrum of the season.
While the Italian was playing it safe towards the end of the race and was hence vulnerable to attack, Marquez chose to consolidate his position instead of closing the gap to him.
The six-time champion said while Bagnaia was within his reach on Sunday, he didn’t want his Silverstone weekend to end in a double DNF, having already retired from the sprint with a fall on the penultimate lap.
“Without the crash of Saturday, maybe the podium was possible — or another crash, you never know,” he said.
“When I overtook Aleix [Espargaro], I just pushed two, three laps to open a gap and then I was controlling [the pace] more behind Pecco for my mentality, because I cannot make two mistakes in the same way, Saturday and Sunday.
“For that reason I said I prefer to finish and to have a good feeling for [the next round in] Austria than to arrive there without good confidence.”
Marc Marquez, Gresini Racing Team
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
Marquez had started the British GP weekend on the back foot and admitted he was feeling “lost” on Friday, having to take a tow from Pramac’s Jorge Martin in order to earn a safe passage into Q2.
He again needed the aid of slipstream in qualifying when Saturday’s action began, although this tactic ended up backfiring when he got stuck behind the slower VR46 bikes of Fabio di Giannantonio and Marco Bezzecchi.
A fourth-place seemed certain in the sprint following Bagnaia’s early exit, but with just two laps to go Marquez tucked the front at Vale and hit the deck, suffering yet another DNF in 2024.
Sunday’s race was easily the 31-year-old’s most competitive showing of the weekend, as he overtook the slow-starting Brad Binder, brother Alex Marquez and Espargaro to rise from seventh to fourth.
The Spaniard said being able to lap at the same pace as the frontrunners in the early part of the race was the “best surprise” for him, given how far adrift he had been for much of the three days at Silverstone.
He said: “Honestly speaking, [fourth place] was a great surprise because the [main] thing of the weekend is that we were always on delay.
“Then in the warm-up we tried something that helps me a bit more, for that reason I was able to keep the pace with the front riders in the beginning of the race so this was the best surprise for me.
“I never have been quick and fast with the medium rear tyre and medium front, but I feel super good in the race.
“I was quite conservative in the end because the mistake from Saturday was in my shoulder [sic].”