Alex Marquez: “Risky, I was not expecting collision between Pecco and Marc”

Alex Marquez had a front-row seat for the explosive opening laps of Sunday’s Italian MotoGP, watching on as factory Ducati duo Marc Marquez and Francesco Bagnaia fought tooth and nail at the front.

The Gresini Ducati rider – who splits the factory pair in the world championship standings – slotted into third early on, keeping a watchful distance behind the duelling red bikes.

“I started in a really good way,” said Alex. “I was trying to manage the tyres as Marc did, then he started to fight with Pecco.”

As the GP25s went head-to-head, a scary moment occurred when Bagnaia clipped the rear of Marc’s machine at the exit of Turn 3. The close call forced Alex to sit up and take evasive action.

“Really close,” Alex recalled. “It was so risky because I was not expecting that collision between Pecco and Marc.

“At that moment I saw, especially Pecco, stopping really fast. I picked up the bike and saved the contact. I was also able to overtake Pecco.

“Luckily, nothing happened – that is the most important thing.”

With the two factory riders continuing to trip over one another, Alex spotted his opportunity and seized the lead on lap six.

“I said, I don’t want to go in that fight, I want to wait a little bit to save some energy. But when I saw that the pace was quite slow because of the overtakes, I had the opportunity,” he explained.

“Until then, I didn’t have a really clear moment to attack them. But when Pecco made a mistake in the last corner, they were parallel on the straight and I took a really good slipstream. For me, I don't know why, but it was difficult to overtake them.

“I said, now is the time. You have the opportunity. Try to go for it. When I saw that it was a clear move, I did it.”

Having passed Bagnaia again at Turn 3, Alex pressed on and set a strong pace in clean air.

“I knew I should maybe save my pace for the last laps, but in that moment it was my strategy to push and be in front, also for the tyre,” he continued. “I did it quite well, but Marc was better than us.”

Alex’s stint in the lead lasted three laps before Marc countered with a race-winning move and pulled clear to win by two seconds.

“Before coming here, I knew it was a good opportunity to take more points than him, but he was better than us,” admitted Alex, who is known for excelling around fast and flowing circuits like Mugello.

“But for the world championship, also we were better than Pecco, and we have more points in the championship.

“So we took second in the championship in a really good way. But we need to keep focused – it was a really positive weekend for us.”

Although Alex Marquez has now slipped 40 points behind brother Marc at the top of the standings, his runner-up finish in the race gives him a 70-point advantage over Bagnaia heading into next weekend’s Dutch MotoGP at Assen.