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Marc Marquez leaves Motegi defeated, but with a smile. The Spaniard and Dovizioso gave life to a duel that was surely one for the history books, trying as always to get back on top down to the last metre. As we said, it didn’t work out for him, but number 93 appears to be anything but disappointed. “It was a fantastic race –Marc begins – where we battled down to the end. I was fine even with second place in terms of the championship since we are on a track where I have often struggled, but in any case I took various risks, partly because I was very much in tune with the bike. I did not push to the limit for the whole race, but in the finale I tried to get away unsuccessfully, so I realised that we would be battling down to the end.”
The last laps were a back and forth of emotions where several times the Spaniard went from seeming to be in difficulty to being ready to win the race.
“For a moment I thought about settling, when I lost almost a second of advantage, partly because with all the water I was in more difficulty than in other conditions, but then I recovered and I decided to have a go at the last corner. We had a clean battle, except for the pass on turn three which was at the limit and for which I need to apologise to Dovi. The duel in Austria? I hadn’t thought about it. I was focused on figuring out where his strong points and weak points were.”
It was a duel today that was made even more difficult by the prohibitive visibility.
“It was not easy, especially when Dovi overtook me; I lost a lot of ground because I had to adapt to the different visibility. It was also difficult to maintain the right temperature for the tyres which deteriorated in the finale, causing me to lose the right confidence and therefore I was unable to be as fast as I had been in practice.”
The championship is obviously now more open than before and Marc is ready for the battle, but without sparing any praise for his rival.
“Some thought that most of the work was done, but that is not the case and now I have an eleven point advantage. Now we have three tracks where the conditions can vary and the important thing is to always be in the top positions. This is certainly one of the most difficult championships that I have ever faced. I am pushing and I am trying to get the best from my bike and I think it shows. 22 or 23 crashes came because I push hard, also because in MotoGP there are a lot of different variables on every track to which you need to adapt your riding style and settings. To be honest, I would never have thought that I would be battling for the tile with Andrea – number 93 concludes – but it is a nice surprise for the championship: Dovi is a hard worker and hard work pays off. It is nice to battle with him for the title precisely because he is a good guy.”
