Marc Marquez: Either I’ll improve, or there will be a yellow flag…
Of Marquez’s accidents, the second - at the very end of the afternoon - was the most substantial, sending his Kalex frame barrel-rolling through the gravel.
Yet it was the slower morning slide he felt was “not necessary’ since the afternoon accident, on entry to the fast Turn 9 chicane, occurred while fighting to stay inside the top ten on his final lap.
Marquez, who had already unleashed his strategic side by targeting reigning champion Francesco Bagnaia for a tow earlier in the session, revealed that it had been a calculated risk:
“I was P8, so then I was pushing, I said, ‘OK, I will try to improve the lap time, because like this I will be in Q2, and if not, there will be a yellow flag and they will not improve’. So...”
Fast laps are cancelled if a rider passes the scene of a yellow flag.
The morning accident had prompted Marquez to switch over to the Kalex chassis, already waiting on his second bike, and he seemed to favour the German frame for most of the day.
The eight-time world champion was using the new frame when he fell at the end of Practice 2, and must hope it has not been fatally damaged, but had no regrets for making such a typical all-out attack on his return to MotoGP from a broken thumb.
“I know that 90% of riders will take it easy and step by step [on their return], but I'm not like this,” Marquez said. “If I come back, it's because I'm ready to race, ready to push, ready to work for the team and ride the bike on the limit.
“Of course, I can be half a second slower like the other Hondas, and be out of Q2, but it's not my way. My way is to push.”
Marquez added: “I'm very happy about the day. I had two crashes. For me, the second one is normal in racing. You are pushing with new tyres, and the target was to try to be in Q2, and I was happy.
“The first one was maybe unnecessary, and one that I can avoid. But honestly speaking, being one and a half months at home, it's difficult to go out, be fast, feel the tyres, feel everything.
“And in this GP the tyre allocation is not so good, so for that reason I went out in the morning with the medium front, and then I crashed with that medium front. And this was the main reason for the first crash.
“We tried both chassis. It was a busy day, because every time I went out on the track, it was a different bike, different chassis, different riding style, different way to approach the corner. But it was the time to do it, and it was positive.
“Now we need to analyse a few things, but tomorrow maybe we will keep going in that way of the Kalex chassis, to try to understand this different philosophy.
“Because there are some negative points, some positive, but try to absorb those negative points to try to be even faster. Saying that, we are still far from the top guys…”
Marquez, who sustained the thumb injury when he collided with Miguel Oliveira in Portimao, made clear the Kalex frame is not a silver bullet that will instantly solve all of Honda's problems.
“It's another step in some areas in this circuit, but we need more steps,” Marquez said. “We are still losing too much, we are [pushing[ too much on the brakes, because we are losing in acceleration and on the straight.
“For that reason we are pushing a lot the front. For that reason all the Hondas, we are crashing too many times. But OK, this is the way to keep going, and I'm a rider who will keep pushing to try to understand the way for the future.”
Team-mate Joan Mir, who also had one Kalex chassis in his pit box, began the day in a competitive sixth but slipped all the way back to 18th in the faster afternoon hour.
“We tried the new chassis in the morning and I could feel a bit better,” Mir said. “I was able to ride more comfortable but it’s quite different so we have to adapt a bit the bike and myself to the new style.
“In the morning it was coming very natural but in the afternoon we have to see because it is not normal what happened. We have to understand so we avoid it for tomorrow.
“Overall tomorrow we will keep with the same chassis [Kalex] and try to improve a bit more and to see where we are. “
Pressed on what the strange feeling was in the afternoon, Mir added: “It looks like the [soft front] is the tyre that everyone likes. So to make the time attack with a ten-lap tyre is not the same…
“But I’m sure it was only that. We have to see what really happened. Maybe something also on the engine side with the electronics that was not really correct.”
LCR Honda riders Alex Rins and Takaaki Nakagami, who do not have the Kalex chassis available, were 13th and 15th.
