Marc Marquez 80% sure of Le Mans crash, Jerez ‘avoided’ it, ‘because I know myself’

Marc Marquez says he is “80% sure” he’d have crashed in the wet MotoGP French Grand Prix had it not been for the error he made two weeks prior at Jerez.

The factory Ducati rider crashed in the opening laps of the Spanish Grand Prix a fortnight ago while running in the podium places and with pace enough to fight for the win.

This mistake is something that has proved to be a vital learning experience for Marc Marquez, who cautiously rode to second in the wet French GP on Sunday.

The result, along with his win in the French GP sprint, has put him 22 points clear in the championship having come into the round trailing by a point from his Jerez crash.

Marc Marquez "80% sure" claim at French MotoGP

Had he come away from Jerez with a win, Marquez believes he would have likely hit the deck at Le Mans “because I know myself”.

“Was that kind of Sunday that you can do a mistake, or it’s easy,” he said on Sunday in the post-race press conference.

“But the fact that I did a mistake in Jerez avoided the mistake today, because if not, if I came from a victory from Jerez I’m 80% sure I would crash today because I know myself.

“So, that mistake of Jerez… I need to keep thinking about this and try to improve for the future.”

Marquez added that the French GP, which also saw him serve two long lap penalties for changing bikes on the warm-up lap as well as a flag-to-flag pitstop to go to wet tyres, was one of damage limitation.

“It was the kind of day where you need to minimise the damage,” he explained.

“Why, because in those conditions it’s super easy to do a small mistake.

“In the race, I was just trying to control Alex [Marquez], who is the main opponent for the championship at the moment; he is the one who is closest to me.

“Just I tried to manage that distance between him.

“In one point, when I go out with the rain [tyres] I pushed and I saw I was closing Johann, but eight seconds were too much [of a gap to make up].

“And riding in 1m45s was too much of a risk and I go back to 1m46s, 1m47s, finish the race and done.”