Marc Marquez claims an alert on the grid drove his Honda MotoGP bike “crazy,” resulting in his poor start at the Americas Grand Prix, which saw him finish last.
The six-time MotoGP championship winner was marking his comeback to action at the Circuit of the Americas after a double vision-related hiatus in Argentina, and many of his opponents tipped him to win the race even though he started ninth on the grid.
However, due to some technical glitch, he was unable to pull back at the beginning and was relegated to last place by the first curve, when his Honda sprung to life.
Marquez confesses that he mistookly engaged his pit limiter and that the bike still had issues during the race, but it was strong enough for him to finish sixth.
“We had a technical problem, but Honda is investigating what’s going on,” Marquez said on Sunday at COTA.
“They know already more or less, but they are investigating. Since I arrived on the start, I saw some alarms [on the dashboard] and then I tried to start, to not lose a lot, but the bike was crazy.
“And then I thought something big was there, but when I arrived in the first corner… I mean, from the start to the first corner there was no pushing from the bike, it was like pit limiter.
“Even I checked if I put on the pit limiter. But no.
“This alarm kept on all the race, but lucky for us at the first corner when the holeshot was disengaged, the bike works more or less in a good way – not perfect, because there was something there that was still wrong.”
The Spaniard went on to say that his grand prix had turned into a “sprint race” from that point on, but that his physique prevented him from finishing better than sixth.
“I gave everything, and when five, six laps remained my body said ‘OK, that’s it’ and then I just tried to finish the race and even like this I managed to finish in a good pace,” he said.
“The result is not what we expected, but if we check how we started, how the first corner was and how we finished, we can say we built and we got a lot of confidence from this weekend.
“My target was to build confidence, try to don’t have any crash all weekend because the doctor said to me everything was fixed but I am scared about my health, was a recent impact three weeks ago.
“So, just I ride in a good way and this was the most important thing.”
Despite being denied an opportunity to earn his 8th COTA race, Marquez states he is “happy” with the race and, more importantly, with the sense of being able to return to Texas after his sight problems following his severe Indonesia incident.
“Being here already this weekend was satisfaction and finishing the race in sixth position is also satisfaction,” he stated.
“If we check how we started the race, it’s true that looks like when you are in the worst moment everything arrives.
“We never had a technical problem during all the years nearly, and today that is when I need more the help we had technical problem.
“But this is something that happens and I keep going, keep pushing.
“I want to say thanks to the team because they helped me a lot, they believed in me, they give me the confidence I need and this is the most important thing.”
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