Marquez explains high crash rate at Le Mans

Marc Marquez says a combination of better grip and aggressive riding is causing the high number of crashes across all three classes at Le Mans having endured his own off during the final practice session.

The Repsol Honda rider, who has secured his best qualifying performance since the 2018 MotoGP season opener in Qatar with second place, tipped off towards the end of FP4 at Turn 3 where he broke one of his fairing wings but still continued to finish the session despite the damage.

More than 60 different crashes have been recorded across the three classes at Le Mans this weekend, with the current tally rising above last year’s total with the trio of warm-up sessions and races still to come, despite the rider-friendly conditions and temperatures.

While many have pointed to the lower air temperatures cooling the tyres on the straights as a key cause, Marquez feels Le Mans Bugatti circuit’s grippy surface, having been resurfaced prior to the 2017 event, has seen riders become more aggressive on a track which offers more grip to a certain point.

“For a race distance it is important because during this weekend we’ve seen many crashes,” Marquez said. “I think the main reason is we have a lot of grip and then every rider pushes a lot but when the tyre is light it is so aggressive because the grip is there. This is the main reason and we need to take care with it.”

Marquez is expected to race at Le Mans with Honda’s new fairing, which has Yamaha-style wings on the front, despite crashing during his final run in FP4 which broke one of the wings, while he is still undecided on whether to use the carbon or the aluminium swingarm with his RC213V .

“With only one wing I didn’t feel any different! Some of the Japanese staff were worried because all the papers and computer analysis of the aerodynamics were out,” he said. “I was pushing but you feel it a little bit on the brake point but for pushing on two or three laps it was okay.

“On this circuit I don’t feel a big difference [with the carbon swingarm] but maybe in other circuits like Jerez with higher corner speeds I feel the difference more.

“Here it looks important to manage the tyres and all these things are done in a different way but during the weekend I was fast with the aluminium swingarm so we still need to decide which one we will use for tomorrow.”