Marc Marquez on Jerez MotoGP crash: ‘A mistake… but I don’t understand it’

Ducati MotoGP rider Marc Marquez admits his crash out of the Spanish Grand Prix was “a mistake” but one “I don’t understand” because “I was cruising”.

The factory Ducati rider didn’t get a good launch from second on the grid and dropped behind team-mate Pecco Bagnaia.

This led to a hard battle from Turn 7 to Turn 11, which ended in slight contact and Bagnaia holding the position.

Then on lap three, while running third still, Marquez crashed going through Turn 7.

He rejoined the race to finish 12th, but is now one point off new championship leader Alex Marquez following his maiden victory.

It’s the second time this season Marc Marquez has crashed while in contention for victory, but unlike in America he says he doesn’t have an obvious explanation for this one.

“It’s a mistake and we need to learn about it and try to avoid it for the future if we want to fight for the championship,” he said.

“We have a lot of speed, but one more time… Austin I understood why I crashed, but today I don’t understand.

“I need to analyse it because I was not attacking, I was cruising just like I did in the first races behind them because that I know that the second part of the race is my strong point.

“But it’s like this, we need to accept it.”

Offering some theories on why he crashed, Marquez added: “Just maybe - I didn’t check the data - but maybe I was one degree more angle.

“I was behind two riders and it was maybe the first time in the weekend I was behind riders, and maybe the bike changed a bit and I didn’t think about it.

“So, for that reason I made that mistake. The important thing is the speed is there, but we need to avoid the mistakes.”

Coming off his fifth successive sprint win in 2025 on Saturday at Jerez and showing strong pace on used tyres in Friday practice, Marquez’s crash likely threw away another victory chance.

But he doesn’t see this as a negative because he fell while clearly showing he has good speed.

“It makes me happy,” he replied when asked if his pace made his crash more frustration.

“Of course, if you don’t have the pace and you crash you have two things to fix: the crash plus the pace.

“The pace is there, but just we need to avoid the mistakes. Of course, the second part of the race was my strong point.

“But [I need to] try to learn for the future. But inside the drama, we are only one point behind the leader, which is the most important thing.”

On his battle with Bagnaia, Marquez added: “It was a good one. In the first lap everybody knows it’s super important and here in Jerez we had small contact between Turn 11.

“But apart from that it was a good fight and unlucky we couldn’t continue it to the end.”

Marquez came to parc ferme at the end of the race to celebrate with his younger brother Alex after his first MotoGP win, which he says was the only positive from his race.

“It’s the only thing that today I have a small smile and I’m super happy and super proud for him, especially because he worked super hard to win a race in MotoGP,” he added.

“It was one of the targets of his career. He won the race, he’s leading again the championship, he’s riding in an amazing way. So, I’m proud of him.”