Marc Marquez delivers sombre verdict on double-DNF disaster at Indonesian MotoGP
His first round since confirming that he will swap Repsol Honda for Gresini Ducati next year, Marquez failed to finish either the sprint race or the grand prix.
“The weekend started in a good way but then day by day, it became more complicated,” he reacted.
“Today in the race I kept calm, I was losing a little bit of ground, but I was not panicking. The aim was to finish the race and I was riding with this in mind.
“Unfortunately, at one point in Turn 13 I lost the front and I couldn’t save it. A tricky crash to understand but we start thinking about Australia.”
After his weekend ended in the gravel, a miserable Marquez stayed at the barriers for a while, watching the other bikes go past.
"I was trying to understand the mistake I had made,” he said to DAZN.
“I didn't do anything special, I was following what I felt the bike was asking of me.
“The telemetry says that I did the same thing as the previous lap and I fell, my mistake.
"I have apologised to the team and I am going to face these five remaining races in the best possible way.
"We have two circuits left where we will suffer a lot and two where we can do a little better, let's see if we can save the situation in the best way we can.”
Marquez to change mentality for final rounds with Honda
His latest fall in the Indonesian MotoGP is the 23rd of this season.
"One more, twenty-something this year, well, it's over, five races,” a frustrated Marquez said.
“I want to apologise to the team, this weekend we have gone from more to less, normally it was the other way around, from less to more.
“Now it's time to take a little step back. In the last races, from India, it seemed that we were further ahead, you get encouraged, you see yourself more with the first and this makes you lose your reference.
“Now it's time to return to the mentality of Silverstone and Montmelo, take a little step back and finish races."
Marquez shifted his mind-set at the mid-way point of 2023 after a harrowing Sachsenring weekend full of crashes, and focused solely on completing races.
This season he has finished just five grands prix.
Marquez said: "I was very calm, after the sprint I was very calm, I have not been stressed, but it was one of those falls that you do not see coming.
“Without warning I fell, it is worse to fall trying not to fall than to push.
“Yesterday (in the sprint) I understood the fall, not today.
"Now we have to take a step back and return to the mentality of finishing races. My intention today was to finish and return the bike to the garage."
The Australian MotoGP begins on Friday.
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
