Marc Marquez reveals unintended benefit of Indonesia MotoGP sprint penalty

Marc Marquez admits he “could not stop” his Ducati MotoGP bike when he made contact with Alex Rins in the Indonesian Grand Prix sprint, but rode “my best” after his penalty.

The reigning world champion was trying to recover from a season-worst ninth on the grid on Saturday when he made contact trying to pass Yamaha’s Alex Rins for seventh on the opening lap at Turn 10.

The contact dropped the Yamaha rider down to the back of the pack, while Marc Marquez was served with a long lap penalty.

It marked his first riding offence of the year, with his last long lap at Le Mans awarded under the new start procedure rules when he pitted on the warm-up lap.

Marquez recovered to seventh at the chequered flag having dropped to 13th when he served his punishment in the 13-lap Mandalika sprint, though was promoted to sixth when Luca Marini was hit with a tyre pressure punishment.

Explaining what caused his tangle, Marquez said:

“I did that mistake on the first lap,” he said.

:I already said sorry to Alex, but I could not control that lap on the first hard brake point.

“I jumped into the dirty part a bit, the rear started to slide, plus the slipstream of the front riders… me and Rins were a bit wide, but I was inside I could not stop because if I jumped more in Marini was there.

“So, I touched him, he went into the run-off are and when you do that you need to receive a penalty.

“I saw long lap, I respected it, I did it.

“And after that I relaxed even more and I started a good comeback. And in the last part of the sprint, I was riding my best during the whole weekend in the last three, four laps.”

Podium wasn’t possible even without penalty, claims Marquez

Marquez’s average pace was around 0.8s per lap slower than sprint winner Marco Bezzecchi’s even having served a long penalty, suggesting he could have had speed enough to fight for the podium.

But the Ducati rider doubts this and warns his best hope in Sunday’s grand prix is a fifth-place finish.

“The best result was fourth, in front of Alex, or fifth behind Alex,” he said.

“But without [Pedro] Acosta’s crash it was fifth, sixth.

“So, our position for tomorrow is to try to fight for fifth to seventh.

“But it depends tomorrow how I will feel with the medium. I cannot predict anything because on Friday with the medium it was even more difficult.”