“Marc Marquez is starting to learn that Pedro Acosta is similar to him…”
“You know what Marc is like - he’ll extract every positive from that incident.”
Marc Marquez knows that Pedro Acosta rides with a similar mentality after the Americas MotoGP, it has been suggested.
Acosta continued his thrilling start to his rookie season by leading a MotoGP race for the first time, before finishing second behind Maverick Vinales.
Acosta earlier overtook Jorge Martin, before Marquez passed Acosta for his first lead on a Ducati.
“Marc is starting to learn that Pedro is similar to him,” Michael Laverty told TNT Sports.
“He will cut back every time. It was clean between both riders but you can see that Acosta wants to bounce back immediately against Marc.”
Marquez fell into the gravel, and out of the race lead, at Turn 11, opening the door for Vinales’ victory and Acosta’s best MotoGP finish so far.
Gresini rider Marquez cited a braking issue for his crash.
“I didn’t understand his crash at all,” Neil Hodgson analysed.
“It was weird. He crashed really early. He clearly had an issue with his brake.
“A couple of his moves, I don’t think he wanted.
“But if you’ve got a slight front brake issue, if the lever isn’t quite where you want it to be, then that can cause that.
“He will be relatively happy. He now knows why he has crashed.
“And that’s in the past. There are lots of positives.
“At the time he was leading the race. He was the top Ducati on the old bike.
“You know what Marc is like - he’ll extract every positive from that incident.”
Marquez has established himself as the fastest rider on a Ducati GP23 this season.
But, although luck has arguably deserted him, he has ended the most recent two grands prix outside of the points.
Marquez is 44 points behind championship leader Martin after three rounds.
Significantly for Ducati’s star new recruit, he was unable to justify many pre-race predictions that he would win for the first time on his new bike.
Marquez has won seven times at the Circuit of the Americas but his opportunity to add an eighth ended in the gravel.
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
