Of the seven races that have been held so far, Marc Márquez has only been able to enroll in five of them, as a result of the hair-raising accident he suffered in the warm up of the second stop on the calendar, in Mandalika. That fall that made it impossible for him to run in Indonesia and also in Argentina, had an almost greater impact on the psychological aspect than on the physical. And that the brutal impact against the ground caused the problems of diplopia (double vision) to reproduce.
Since that Sunday in Lombok, Márquez has taken things differently. The boy from Cervera (Lleida) is limited twice. On the one hand, the right arm that was injured in Jerez (2020) and that caused him to be out for nine months, does not let him drive as usual. And to top it off, the motorcycle that Honda projected for this 2022 prevents him from riding naturally, that is, turning to the front end.
That combination causes the Spaniard to calculate the risks more than ever, especially now that he sees himself further than ever from the first. From his statements, one intuits that he interprets that the profit that I could obtain by playing it is not worth in any case the consequences that a bad fall could have.
The Catalan’s best result in this exercise is the fourth place that he scratched Jack Miller two weeks ago, in Jerez. In addition, it accumulates three sixth positions (Austin, Portugal and Le Mans), and one fifth (Qatar). Those are unprecedented numbers in which, for many, he is the best runner of all time.
This Sunday, at Le Mans, Márquez crossed the finish line more than 15 seconds behind Enea Bastianini, the winner. Again, a world for someone who, before his arm injury, was used to fighting to win on Sundays, yes, and Sundays too.
Despite the bad feelings, both he and his team are working hard to turn the bike around, but the amount of resources is also running out.
“I’m 15 seconds behind the winner again. That’s why it’s easy to accept finishing sixth. I’m trying to improve my riding style and Honda is working on a solution. But we need something. Inside the box we’re running out of ideas, we need that material arrives”, summarized Márquez, who, true to that new facet of his, had no qualms about confirming that he ran without going over the line.
“In Jerez I enjoyed myself because I was able to fight. Here I only took risks in the first lap, to position myself, and then I stayed there. The chances of crashing were high. Surely, if I had risked more maybe I could have finished ahead of Zarco [fifth]” , added #93, who recalled the predictions he made in the previous one, and that he was right.
“On Saturday I already said that more or less that was going to be our position. Without the three crashes that occurred in front I would have finished ninth. I couldn’t go faster,” Márquez resigned.
