Marc Marquez on Thai MotoGP sprint: ‘I wasn’t counting on Bastianini’

Marc Marquez says he “was expecting” to finish third in the MotoGP Thai Grand Prix sprint, but “was not counting on” Enea Bastianini’s race-winning pace.

The Gresini rider qualified fifth after crash in Q2, but was able to run with the leaders off the line to get into the podium battle.

However, Marquez faded out of contention as the 13-lap sprint went on, with the eight-time world champion three seconds behind third-placed Francesco Bagnaia at the chequered flag.

Marquez was one of the fastest on race pace during Friday’s practice, but was taken by surprise at Bastianini’s dominant form in the sprint.

“I mean, I was expecting to finish in third position, because I was not counting on Bastianini,” he told the media, including Crash.net, on Saturday.

“But he was the fastest one. Just in the qualifying practice, but then in the practice with the used tyres he was struggling a bit.

“And then in the race it was the opposite, he was super-fast, super consistent.

“Then we finished in that fourth position. It’s true that taking more risk, maybe we will finish fourth but closer. But I saw that position was my one and tomorrow we will try to repeat.”

Marquez says he needs a “perfect” race on Sunday to have any hope of battling for the final place on the podium, especially as he is losing too much to the GP24s in the first two sectors.

“No, even with the hard [tyre] I think our target is to try to be on that fourth position and if we have a perfect race try to be on that third position,” he added.

“But here we are losing a lot in T1, T2, and we cannot… I mean, I can compensate for five laps, but in the sprint race I saw if I continue to ride like this I will crash.

“Then sometimes you need to understand these things. Always you can have a mistake, but [I will] try to avoid.”

The Gresini rider almost came to blows with Jorge Martin on the exit of the first corner after the championship leader ran off track trying to take the lead.

The pair narrowly avoided contact as Martin cut the throttle of his Pramac-run Ducati, but Marquez believes he should have approached rejoining the circuit better.

“I saw the image and it was lucky because I predicted that movement,” he explained.

“He went out of the track and then luckily I didn’t go to the kerb, and I predict he would come back.

“But he came back in a little bit of an optimistic way. But luckily I predicted a bit that movement and nothing happened.

“He closed the gas, but it’s better if you go out of the track to come back later because you have space on that corner.”