Marquez: The saves get better and better!

An eventful Saturday for Marc Marquez ended with the reigning world champion just missing out on pole position for his home Catalunya MotoGP.

The Repsol Honda star began the day with an FP3 fall, leaving him outside the top ten and forcing an appearance in Qualifying 1.

But just before that session got underway the title leader produced another legendary save, after losing the front through the 150km/h final turn.

It took several attempts, but the persistence paid off as the RCV finally kicked upright and Marquez rode out of the corner shaking his hand in the air with an apparent mixture of relief and delight.

"It was the last corner. I lost the front and I was fighting against everything!" Marquez smiled.

"Against the bike, against my knee, pushing a lot. And then it looked like I was able to save it, but then when I went on to the dirty part of the track, I lost the front again!

"The steering was fully closed and it was long, maybe the longest save of my career.

"Every time the saves get better and better, so we will see where we can arrive!

"But it shows we are pushing, we are struggling. Especially we are struggling with the front confidence but we are able to save.

"I hope to be smoother tomorrow and not repeat it."

Asked if he is worried about injuring himself when making the save, Marquez replied that it's a mix of preparation and instinct.

"Of course you must be ready, train at home and for example today I pushed a lot with my knee," he said.

"But one of the strong things in my body is a lot of flexibility and this is important for crashing and making saves on the bike.

"My brother does the same training as me, but doesn't have the same flexibility. It's something my mother and father gave to me and I'm really happy for this!

"It's dangerous to try and save. But if I crash, I crash slower. Because if you lose [control] in the first part and crash, you crash faster.

"It's something I don’t create. If you ask me why or how I save the bike I don’t know. It's something that comes naturally. But I'm always riding on the limit and trying to feel the limit and this maybe gives a special feeling."

The four-time MotoGP champion has a larger elbow slider to try and help, but that wasn't any use today.

"Alpinestars is also working hard. We made the elbow slider a little bigger because in Mugello, for example, when I lost the front and I tried to save it, and when you touch [the ground] with the leather it just stops your arm and it is so difficult to recover. Now we have increased that area so have that slide and try to save in another way.

"But this time I saved with the knee not the elbow, so maybe we need to work on the knee too!"

Marquez - who holds a 23-point lead over Valentino Rossi - will start Sunday's race between the factory Ducatis of Jorge Lorenzo and Andrea Dovizioso on the front row of the grid.

Despite two falls and the big save so far this weekend, Marquez feels he has a better chance of victory than last time at Mugello, where he was caught out and fell in the race.

"In Mugello I already knew I'd struggle a lot to manage the front tyre. But here I feel a little bit better the limit. So here I'm able to take a little more risk. But always you need to compromise,"  he said.

"Of course it's not been an easy weekend but the most important thing is that - we are struggling a little bit, especially against the Ducati riders, especially Jorge -  but we are there. So we will see tomorrow if we can fight for the victory. Why not?"