Marc Marquez lauds Fabio Quartararo: “What he’s doing with the Yamaha bike…”

Ducati MotoGP rider Marc Marquez says the lessons he learned from his Jerez race crash proved crucial in his victory in Saturday’s French Grand Prix sprint.

The factory Ducati rider has been the favourite for victory at every grand prix so far in 2025, but has only converted that status into three wins having crashed in the Americas and Spanish GPs.

On Saturday at Le Mans, he bested polesitter Fabio Quartararo in an early duel to maintain his 100% sprint record in 2025 and become the first rider to win six sprints in succession.

Marc Marquez took the lead off the line in the sprint, but ran wide at Turn 2 and let Quartararo back through, before the Yamaha rider bolted in the first laps.

At this point, Marquez says he was “careful” as he learned at Jerez that it’s easy to lose the front when the tyres are new and just bided his time.

“The first two laps… the first three corners he opened up a big gap because I did a mistake,” he told the official MotoGP website.

“But then I saw he was pushing a lot in the first two laps, but I already did that mistake in Jerez race on Sunday.

“With the new tyres you need to be careful of the [rear] pushing the front.

“I was careful in those two, three laps, because I predicted it will be better with the used tyre.

“In fact, I caught him… he’s riding in an incredible way.

“What he is doing with the Yamaha bike, I mean he is super talented.

“So, congrats to him. When I overtook him I just pushed two, three laps to open up the gap and control.”

Marquez added that Ducati needs to improve something on his bike for Sunday should it be dry as the warmer conditions meant “the feeling with the track was a bit different”.

“One more time Saturday is our day, but I would like to be Mr Sunday, not Mr Saturday, because on Sunday we have more points.

“The feeling is good, but let’s see what we can improve for tomorrow because with that hot temperature the feeling with the track was a bit different.

“But try to understand if we can do a small step in some areas to manage it better. But the pace was there.”