Aragon Grand Prix winner Marc Marquez admits he did not feel comfortable at all on his Honda during the 23–lap race, and was ‘fighting against’ his RC213V.
Marquez was denied a fifth–successive Aragon premier class pole when he crashed on his final lap in qualifying on Saturday.
Admitting afterwards he simply pushed too hard, the Spaniard revealed today he did not ‘feel well’ on his Honda for most of the weekend.
Marquez says the bike felt better in Sunday’s warm–up, but that improvement did not carry over to the race, and from the off he struggled.
“Of course, very happy for the victory,” Marquez, who now leads the standings by 16 points, said.
“But I’m more happy because, since yesterday, I didn’t feel how I expected with the bike.
“Looks like this morning the feeling came back a little bit, but during the race, since the first lap, I felt not so good.
“I was fighting against the bike all the race, I nearly crashed many times, but the fact to be racing in one of my favourite circuits at home gave me this extra motivation to keep pushing all the race.”
Despite struggling to push on his Honda, Marquez admits he could not afford to ease his pace after catching a glimpse of the multi–rider group battling for fifth behind him.
“I take a lot of risk today, every race you take a risk,” he said.
“But, for example, in Misano you can manage a little bit for a few laps, then just attack in the end.
“But today the problem is the feeling was not there, on lap five I didn’t feel good but I saw on the TV maybe 10 riders behind me, it was a big group.
“Then I say ‘OK, push,’ because if not you can lose many, many points. As you see I was fighting against the bike the whole race.”
Marquez made several errors as he pushed to catch the leaders, most notably at Turn 12 on lap nine when he out–braked himself attempting to pass Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo, dropping back to fourth.
The Spaniard was able to catch up with race leader Lorenzo again, but felt even worse on the bike by this point and contemplated backing off to get to the finish. However, an ardent desire to win on home soil took over.
“I start to push and trying to overtake Valentino I did a mistake, I nearly crash and go wide again, I lose again all the distance (to the leaders),” he said.
“I did the effort again, another time, and of course when you do this kind of effot you stress more the tyres, you stress everything.
“When I catch Lorenzo again I say ‘OK, it’s time to push, time to keep my pace.’ I saw Dani coming faster and faster, and inside one thing was the feeling was not good, we need to finish the race.
“But another thing was burning inside me, and at home race you must try, you must attack with it.”
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