Marc Marquez left “exhausted” by strategic Qatar MotoGP effort

Marc Marquez’s second place at the Qatar MotoGP left him “exhausted”, he says.

Marquez started second but dropped as low as fourth early on as Marco Bezzecchi and Raul Fernandez cleared off, and as Pedro Acosta moved forwards before encountering tyre pressure problems.

The Ducati rider got back to second as Acosta’s tyre pressures saw him purposely drop into traffic, while Marquez was able to catch Fernandez at the end.

It was a calculated performance from Marquez and one that sees him move closer to the title; but it was also a race that left him physically spent, as evidenced initially by on-board camera shots of him wincing through his open visor, and then by his own words when he spoke to the media after the race.

“The most important is that this weekend we are the rider that scored the most points over all the weekend,” said Marc Marquez to MotoGP.com’s After the Flag show following the Qatar race.

“It’s the most important because it’s this kind of weekend that you can give an extra boost to your opponents if they start to catch you a bit in the championship. 

“But we did an amazing job: qualifying, Sprint, and today in the main race. 

“I was completely exhausted in the end, empty, but if you want to fight for the championship you need to give everything and I did it.

“I had that extra risk to overtake Fernandez and push the last two laps because you never know if you will need those four points.”

Marquez added that his tiredness was purely physical; mentally he’s “better than ever”.

“On mental side I feel better than ever – if not it would be impossible to ride as I ride,” Marquez said.

“But physically I was completely exhausted: three races in a row, I was struggling a lot this weekend. 

“If you see Friday afternoon, just two laps, stop, two laps; this morning, even in the Warm Up, I went out later, just trying to keep my energy for the race. 

“It’s difficult, but on mental side I’m better than ever.”

“Clever strategy”

The race itself saw Marquez give up a lot of time at the start, but come stronger from the middle of the race.

Marquez explained afterwards that he had already decided before the race that it was not worth pushing the front tyre early in the race to try to go with Marco Bezzecchi in particular, who had shown strong pace in Practice on Friday.

“I was super-calm in the first laps because it was my strategy: I was very clever,” the Ducati Lenovo Team rider said.

“I knew that if I pushed the first three laps I could damage the front tyre, the right side, and then I [would] struggle all the race. 

“So, I preferred to lose 1.5 seconds or two seconds in those first three or four laps, but then I knew that the next 15 laps would be in a good level. 

“So, the compromise overall was better in that style and it’s what I did; I forgot who was leading the race, I just was looking that Martin didn’t overtake me, so I was calm.”

Speaking later, in the press conference, Marquez said of his race strategy: “Was difficult but at the same time it was not difficult because in the end when you see the race pace in Practice, that Marco [Bezzecchi] was half-a-second faster than me – three-tenths, five-tenths – there’s nothing to do. You can follow him for three laps, but not 22 laps. 

“It was not the time to take that extra risk today. We did it in the previous races, we did it yesterday and today also in the last part of the race I took that extra risk because you never know if you will need those extra four points. 

“But now let’s see. It’s time to go home, be super-concentrated, and just ‘train, eat, sleep, repeat’ – like this until Portimao.”