Alex Marquez explains cause of “disaster” MotoGP Friday in Japan

Gresini Ducati’s Alex Marquez branded his Friday at the MotoGP Japanese Grand Prix a “disaster” as he failed to gain direct access to Q2 for the first time in 2025.

The second-placed rider in the standings is the only one capable of stopping Marc Marquez from winning the 2025 world title now, and needs to not be outscored by three points this weekend to delay his older brother’s coronation until Indonesia.

Though it was a scrappy day for both Marquez brothers, Alex Marquez came off the worst of them as he could only manage 15th at the end of Practice.

Starting the day off with a crash in FP1, the Gresini rider languished at the bottom of the timesheets for much of Practice in the afternoon as he battled a lack of front feeling.

“I mean, it was a disaster this morning,” he told the official MotoGP website.

“It was less of a disaster this afternoon, I would say, because still at least we had some positive things on the time attack with the soft rear.

“The first time attack was really good. It’s true that the second one we were a little bit unlucky with yellow flags and all that.

“But anyway, it was not a good day for us. Strange day for everybody, but especially for us.

“I don’t have feeling on the front tyre, I cannot stop the bike and I am struggling on that point.

“But we need to understand for tomorrow. We need to find some solutions.

“It was not a good day but the small positive thing that we have is we just missed the Q2 for half a tenth.

“So, nothing, with all the problems we had. So, we have to be positive for tomorrow.”

Explaining his FP1 crash, Marquez says he was trying to a “huge set-up difference” at the time and noticed something “was not really good” on that bike afterwards.

“I mean, it’s true that I remained with the medium/medium, especially the medium rear tyre, to try to find a solution for the problems that we have because if you change the rear tyre you don’t understand what is happening on the bike,” he added.

“And we know here the soft rear is a huge step on the grip level. So, just that.

“We were in that moment good. Also, from the crash, when I took the other bike I saw something was not really good on the first bike.

“So, we need to understand exactly what happened, be calm, be patient and do our job.

“We changed on that run the set-up, quite a huge set-up difference.

“And when you change like that, you always have crashes you don’t understand. But I forgot it, I took the other bike and I was able to be a little bit faster than what we were.”

Facing Q1 for the first time this season, he sees this as an opportunity to gain extra track time to understand his problems better.

“The Q1 for me is an opportunity to have 15 minutes more than the rest,” he said.

“It’s what I will try to do, understand things, be fast, be constant, but especially to make a good time attack.

“So, I will focus on that to give my maximum. And from that moment I will try to pass to Q2 and pass to Q2 with fresh things and know what we need to do in the time attack.”