Sepang.- This time he could not fight for the podium, on a track with physical demands for the rider, and mechanics for the bike, much greater than those of Australia, where he was third, Marc Márquez finished 14 seconds behind the winner, Pecco Bagnaia, after Jack Miller snatched sixth place from him in the final laps.
“I’m not kidding, yesterday I said that a seventh place was good, and that finishing later was a gift. Of course I don’t know much, but it is what it is, we have been very far from the winner in seconds, which in the end is what you look”, he valued.
“We have tried, I have started hot to follow those in front, I have done a good lap, but I was consuming a lot of tires and at the end of the race I have paid for it. When you do not have the speed you cannot manage”, he lamented.
Márquez already warned that in Sepang he was going to suffer and in the end that is what happened.
“I knew that this circuit was one of the worst for my riding style and also for the bike, without an engine on the straight you can’t do anything,” he said.
But the most important thing is that at the level of the arm injury, there was no step back.
“Physically I have felt quite well. When you suffer and fight with the bike, you get more tired and on lap four or five it was already blowing inside the helmet, and that is not good. So I have decided to calm down a bit. I have suffered more that in Japan, a lot of strength is required on this circuit, but it hasn’t been a limit, the limit has been elsewhere”, in reference to the bike.
With each passing day, Marc seems to have put his arm injury behind him.
“Now I hope to make another small step in these two weeks to Valencia, as I did after Buriram. The stages have been burned very quickly, I think that in Valencia we can do better than here,” he advanced.
For Honda to finish the season with a victory, without a doubt, it would be the best foundation to start preparing for his return, one hundred percent, in 2023.
“I have not said anything about fighting to win, we will see how the Valencia weekend goes, it is a circuit that I like, but there are riders who will go very fast, the Ducati for sure, but a top 5 if everything fits together is feasible. But we’ll see when we get there the situation and if there are no surprises and I can achieve it, we have to wait to be there”, settled the one from Cervera.