Marquez: No risk, no reward

Marc Marquez says he considered settling for second place for a fleeting moment before deciding to follow his instincts as the reigning champion bounced back with a brilliant victory at Misano.

On a wet but drying track, Marquez stalked Danilo Petrucci throughout the race before making his move into turn 1 at the beginning of the final lap.

He produced a sublime last lap to pull away from the Pramac Ducati rider, securing his fourth win of the season as he put the disappointment of his DNF at Silverstone behind him to move level with Andrea Dovizioso on 199 points at the top of the MotoGP World Championship.

Mindful of the impact a crash would have on his title aspirations, Marquez thought about collecting a safe 20 points for second place, but the Repsol Honda rider soon changed his mind and decided to push for the victory.

“The race was amazing and you cannot imagine the tension and how focused [I was] and it was so difficult to keep the concentration because the race was so long,” he said.

“During the race the feeling was changing a little bit and at the start of the race I was struggling a little more. The in the second part of the race I was OK but in the last part of the race is when I felt better.

“In one point I started to think about the championship and I say maybe second position is enough, but then I started to think more and I said I have the potential, I feel I will try because you never know – these five points you never know if you will miss or not in the last round in Valencia,” Marquez added.

“During the race I was trying to follow Danilo and all the riders because after the warm-up crash, it was a good crash because if not, I think I would crash during the race. That crash gives me a warning and then I was just trying to follow Danilo very quiet – maybe sometimes I have a little bit more, but always trying to control and push in the points where I felt good.

“And then on the last lap I prepare really well. On the last three laps, already I had the possibility to overtake him, but then I say I don’t want to fight with Danilo here in Misano. For that reason I overtake him and I pushed my 100 per-cent and for me, it was better to take the risk for one lap than to take the risk in the corners.”

Marquez says he ran the risk of critics criticising him if his challenge for the win at Misano in the tricky conditions caused him to fall, but he defended his attacking mindset and points out that his approach has already delivered five world titles.

“Today I didn’t feel [confident] because the track was so slippery it was so easy to do a mistake and when you see Moto2 and Moto3 race, you are losing confidence and after the warm-up crash.

“But I realise that I could miss these five points in Valencia so I tried, I pushed. It was a big risk of course and if I crashed and people would write, ‘he never changes blah blah,’ but it is my style and this style gives me five championships. I will keep pushing, but always trying to manage the risk.”