Last Sunday’s race at the Aragón GP began with the chaos of a double incident involving Marc Márquez. The multi-champion, who was contesting a race again more than a hundred days later, first touched Quartararo at turn 3, who went down and had to leave, before doing so moments later at turn 7 with Nakagami .
Although the second accident (which in fact made Márquez himself abandon) was related to the first, there were those who criticized the move that Márquez made with his Honda partner, Takaaki Nakagami, considering that the #93 could have acted differently.
“Marc exaggerated the maneuver a bit,” said Johann Zarco. “It was a crazy first lap and it all came down to one driver. I hate to say this, because I like Marc. But he was over the limit.”
The Frenchman showed his admiration for the Repsol Honda rider, but did not understand what had happened: “I love his style. For me he is one of the best riders. I already predicted on Thursday that he would be quite strong, but that maneuver was too exaggerated after having the problem with the bike after the collision with Fabio,” he continued.
Márquez explained that a part of the fairing of Quartararo’s bike had gotten stuck in his prototype, so there was little he could do to stay on track. When Zarco was told that reason, he smiled and said, “Then your word is against mine. And your statement carries more weight than mine.”
On the opposite side was Jack Miller, who did not see what happened in the race but later verified it on television. The Ducati man defended Márquez and blamed the Japanese. “The incident with Fabio was a racing accident. Marc had to slow down, he was a bit off the line. The tires were still cold on the first lap,” he commented on Fabio Quartararo’s retirement.
“In the ‘Taka’ incident, I think it was completely ‘Taka’s’ fault because Marc was ahead,” he explained.
Marc explained that in turn 7, when leaving, when he activated the rear height adjuster, his motorcycle blocked and began to go to the left. Miller, on the other hand, takes responsibility away from technical inventions like the holeshot : “I don’t think we can blame all the gadgets for those kinds of incidents.”
“On a motorcycle, things can break when two riders collide. That cannot be avoided.”
Two other pilots narrated what they experienced in the crashes of the first lap. The Spaniard Raúl Fernández defined it as ‘terrifying’.
“ It was complete chaos. When I saw ‘Taka’ fall, I wanted to pull inside, but Morbidelli closed the line. We saved the situation very well”, said the Tech 3 rider. “In MotoGP the best riders in the world race. that situation, everyone knew what to do after the chaotic first lap, it was a good race.
Fellow KTM rider Miguel Oliveira didn’t know what was going on either. “It was confusing. I didn’t know what was going on. There were falls, there were pieces everywhere. It confused me.”
“These were weird crashes. But in my opinion, there was no reason to bring out the red flag.”
Finally, Luca Marini had to dodge Nakagami, and although he admits to some panic, he was able to save the situation: “I was close to Nakagami, but I reacted very well to avoid him. I didn’t lose too much time. However, it was quite scary, because I felt that there was a risk of hitting him in the head. He fell immediately in front of me,” he concluded.
