Marquez hits back at Espargaro? “Talk bull****, next race it can happen to you”
Aprilia rider Espargaro reacted to Marquez’s crash in the season-opening Portuguese MotoGP by demanding a one-race ban then, this week, he insisted these incidents happened more frequently to Marquez and questioned why other riders do not call him out.
Repsol Honda rider Marquez returns from hand surgery for this weekend’s French MotoGP and, without naming Espargaro directly, replied to criticism of his crash into Miguel Oliveira at Portimao.
He was asked if his rivals might not be so pleased to welcome him back, and replied: “We’ll see. We saw already. Nobody can speak a lot.
“If you talk bulls*** about a rider, then in the next race it can happen to you.
“Nobody crashes because they want to crash into another one, nobody attacks without thinking.
“But we ride on the limit and sometimes we make mistakes.
“Sometimes you make a mistake alone, sometimes a mistake and somebody is outside the line.
“There are different situations. In 15 years, there will be situations.
“If you ride at the limit and at the front, you will have different situations.
“So, of course, everybody wants to finish the race and be on the podium.
“Nobody wants to be injured. We cannot choose.
“I received a penalty but I did the penalty at the Argentina GP, this is what I wrote on the paper.”
Espargaro had refused to back down from his original calls for Marquez to face a “one-race ban, minimum”, by telling AS: “It is not to be critical of Marc but to be honest and face it.
"How many touches has Marc had and how many have the other 20 riders combined?
“If it can happen to anyone? Yes, but how many times has it happened to him and how many to me or Pecco?”
Marquez: “I don’t feel fear - sometimes a weak point”
Jorge Lorenzo had claimed that Marquez is unique on the 2023 MotoGP grid by being immune to fear.
The Honda star reacted: “I don’t feel fear. This is sometimes a weak point, sometimes a strong point. I try to use experience.
“In this comeback, I try to use experience with my arm.
“Not to be conservative or to have a different mentality.
“I had three medical teams, with three opinions, and shared those opinions.
“My mentality? My DNA is the same. If I race here, it is to attack. Not to defend.”
Marquez, the six-time MotoGP champion, arrives in Le Mans 80 points behind championship-leader Francesco Bagnaia.
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
