Alex Marquez after Spanish MotoGP practice crashes: “I deserve to have this pain”

A high-speed crash at turn five during Practice for the MotoGP Spanish Grand Prix did not cost Alex Marquez speed, but the Spaniard’s physical pain following the crash is something he “deserves,” he says.

The Spanish rider, who was tipped by Marc Marquez as the "strongest" rider at Jerez after Friday's two sessions, was fastest in FP1 on Friday morning thanks to a late time attack that came after a relatively harmless crash at turn one. 

His second crash of the day, at turn five, however, was more impactful, and the rider who currently sits second in the MotoGP standings was away from the track for 30 minutes after the red flag period ended following his crash, which resulted in damage to the air fence on the outside of turn five, evaluating his physical pain before heading back out on-track for two late time attacks.

“I think tomorrow will be worse,” Marquez told MotoGP.com after his turn five crash.

“A lot of things, the arm, the wrist a little bit, and all this, but it’s like it is.

“I did a mistake so I deserve to have this pain so it’s like it is and I think it’s a good thing sometimes to feel this pain to keep calm a little bit.”

The Spanish rider was able to return to the track in the final 20 minutes of Practice and set a new lap record of 1:35.991 – the first ever sub-1:36 lap of the Circuito de Jerez-Angel Nieto by a MotoGP bike.

Marquez explained that this turnaround was possible by a combination of determination to get back out on-track and optimism after seeing the lap time from his first time attack.

“I was in my office for 40 minutes [...] watching all the session, but I said ‘Come on, after the stupid mistake that you did you need to turn [this] around,’” he said.

“I wasn’t expecting to do a 1:35 today. But with the first tyre, when I saw 1:36.3, I said ‘Not bad’ – I was just riding a little bit with margin because after that crash it wasn’t easy.”

Marquez still had regrets, though, mostly over missing the chance to try different tyres in Practice, and being unable to try different setups he and his Gresini Racing team had planned.

“Happy with that [lap time], but not happy with the mistakes,” he said, “especially because we didn’t make the work today, we have a lot of work for tomorrow.

“The plan was to try a few tyres but also some different setups, so we didn’t do the work so tomorrow we have double the work compared to everybody [else]. But it’s also our mistakes so we need to turn [it] around.”

The 29-year-old explained that the mistakes were down to overconfidence, even saying that “the bike was too good”.

“The mistakes, I was riding with too much confidence,” he said. “The bike was too good, honestly speaking, and I was not feeling the limit, it was like ‘This bike has not limit here,’ but then I realised twice that the limit is there.

“We need to control more, because these mistakes on Friday cost us something for the championship, so we need to control a little bit more, so we learn from this Friday.

“Also, we are in Spain, the crowd is there, and maybe [I was] too motivated. All these things we need to control a little bit more, so it will be experience and tomorrow we need to be with the determination that we [had] today.”