The one from Honda had already warned throughout the weekend that the characteristics of the circuit, with many curves to the right, were not going to help him and that, at all, he was going to be able to be at the same level as in the Aragón Grand Prix , where he fought for victory until the last lap and finished second.
This Saturday, Marc Márquez had set himself a top 5 as his goal, it would even have been decent for him to finish in the top ten. However, on the last lap a double overtaking of Jack Miller and Joan Mir allowed him to finish fourth in the race.
“It went much better than expected, I’m very happy, I didn’t expect this type of race at all, much less finish fourth”, admitted Márquez this Sunday afternoon.
In the final part of the race, Marc managed to catch up with Miller, but when he was going to overtake him, Mir came very quickly to get into the fight, passing the Honda, at the end, from sixth to fourth place almost over the finish line.
“The last overtaking was due to Mir. I smelled blood, he was coming very fast and I knew something was going to happen there. He passed Jack and they both went long, and we were able to take advantage of it”, said the Honda rider.
Two places won in extremis that for the Catalan do not change the decoration.
“It didn’t matter finishing sixth or fourth, nothing changed. But the race has been much better than expected. There have been a few laps in which I was far from Miller and I have been cutting him by rolling in 1:32.7, and those laps have been worth more than the beginning of the race. At the beginning I took it very calmly because with new rubber if I melted it I was going to have a bad race”.
But the Honda, after a pothole, was able to overcome.
“A missile that was Bastianini passed me and I got hooked on it. I hit and we have been advancing, taking those in front. There I had a battle with Rins and I’m happy. It was a decent race without exaggeration, so it was good”, he was happy with the work done.
The curiosity is to see a winner like Marc not giving importance to winning those places in the last lap.
“I say that it was the same to finish fourth as sixth in those conditions. For me today the important thing was to endure the entire race being constant, without exaggerating at the beginning or suffering more than necessary at the end, and that is what I have achieved. At first maybe too calm, but I preferred to err a little by being calm while holding on to the tyres”.
A record that also experienced a critical moment.
“There was a moment in the race that I was about to throw in the towel. When Rins crashed I went a bit too far, I was left alone and the bike moved a lot in the fast corners. I couldn’t control it and I went off track, but then I redirected the situation and we took that step. As happened yesterday, we turned the situation around. Today in the race there have been ups and downs but we have been able to do a good job”.
This Tuesday and Wednesday Misano will host official MotoGP tests in which Márquez hoped to advance work on the 2022 prototype.
“So far this season are the most important tests. We’ll see if I can do many laps, now I’m perfect, although I’m still with the inflammatory. Surely tonight I will suffer a little more, I am tired. But in the test you have to test what is fair, what is necessary and most importantly, we will see if we continue to evolve, not for this year, for 2022. These are the first tests that all the factories will take advantage of to test next year’s motorcycle ” , settled the Cervera.
(Click on the link or on the image to see all the photos of the MotoGP San Marino GP 2021)
