Marc Marquez says his quest to consistently fight at the top of MotoGP is still being largely curtailed by the fact he cannot yet run a race weekend “at 100%.”
The Honda rider revealed he is still struggling to use his full potential due to his recovering right shoulder still causing him problems, and despite being able to run flat-out in races his preparation for Sunday is not as high as it should be due to not being able to push fully throughout practice in order to get an idea of what to expect for the race.
In spite of his “difficulties” though, the six-time premier class champion managed to snare a strong fourth-place finish in last weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix after passing Ducati’s Jack Miller late on, while a first rostrum result of the year was narrowly lost after losing the front off his machine at the final bend and running wide – allowing Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro through to complete the top three.
Marquez conceded that he currently still cannot “ride the way I want with the bike”, singling out his troubles in manoeuvring his RC213-V through right-handed bends as the main barrier of being able to compete consistently for wins and titles again.
“That was the maximum today, I saved my energy all weekend for Sunday because I’m still not in the condition to do the whole weekend at 100%,” explained Marquez.
“Therefore I tried to save my energy on Friday, then yesterday in qualifying I started to push and today I gave everything in the race.
“The best indicator (whether feeling of saving crashes coming back) will be to see if I can make this kind of save on the right side, this is where I’m struggling more as I feel good with the left side and am strong but on the right side I’m still struggling, but I’ll never give up and will keep pushing 100%.
“I am riding with difficulties and I still cannot ride the way I want with the bike, but this is what we have and I’ll keep trying, it doesn’t matter if it’s against my brother like in Portimao or against Miller here, or whether it’s for first or tenth I’ll keep giving my maximum.”
Marquez joked that his home Spanish crowd “helped me back up” from his near race-ending incident at the final bend five laps from home, admitting that he felt a podium was “possible” prior to his near-miss.
“Fourth was the best I could do, but at one point in the race I thought maybe the podium was possible,” continued Marquez.
“The key point was when I overtook (Jack) Miller, in order to stop Aleix (Espargaro) who was faster than us, I tried to do this but then in the last corner I went a bit wide and lost the front and rear, I think the Spanish crowd helped me back up again and saved the crash!”
Keyword: Marquez still can’t complete ‘whole race weekend at 100%’