Marc Marquez “a VIP spectator” for epic Bagnaia, Martin Sepang MotoGP battle

Marc Marquez had the best seat in the house for an epic early battle between title rivals Francesco Bagnaia and Jorge Martin in Sunday’s Malaysian MotoGP.

“I was a VIP a spectator for that nice battle!” Marquez grinned.

“I enjoyed it a lot. But at the same time, I didn't understand. Because they were battling, but their lap times were still super-fast.

“Even if I was just missing the slipstream, I saw that we were opening a gap also with the other riders. So they were riding in a very good way.”

It was for that reason, rather than a reluctance to take on the world championship leaders, that Marquez didn’t launch an attack.

“Just they were faster than me,” Marquez said. 

“Sometimes when you are behind somebody people say from the TV, ‘Why don’t you overtake? Why don’t you join the battle?’

“But today, even if I tried to be in that battle, they were faster than me and it was not possible in terms of speed of riding.”

Under such circumstances, the only other option was for future factory team-mate Bagnaia – still 24 points behind Martin despite Sunday’s win - to slow the pace at the front to try and bring Marquez, Enea Bastianini and others into the mix.

Jorge Lorenzo used such tactics to try and overturn Marquez’s title lead at Valencia 2013, when Marquez won the MotoGP crown as a rookie by just 4 points.

“The problem is that the difference between Pecco, Martin and the others was huge today,” Marquez explained, when asked if he was surprised that Bagnaia didn't slow the pace.

 “I mean, if you see Bastianini [in third] finished 10 seconds behind Pecco.

“So to slow down the race by 2-3 seconds, OK. But to slow down the race by 10 seconds is impossible.”

Just as the spectacular back-and-forth between Bagnaia and Martin settled down, Marquez found himself on the ground after sliding off at the final corner.

“In Thailand, I said ‘I understand my crash’," Marquez said. "But today, I saw Bastianini was +2.5s behind and said ‘OK, I will control the distance with him’.

“I didn't brake later. I didn't brake harder. But I crashed. Sometimes you cannot explain, but I accept it was my mistake.

“I rejoined the race. The bike was a bit damaged, especially the shift lever. But out of respect for the team, I decided to finish the race and I even caught some points.”

Dropping to 17th, the Gresini rider brought his damaged GP23 home in 12th for four points, keeping him narrowly ahead of Bastianini for third in the standings with only the new Barcelona season finale to go.

“I'm very happy about my weekend because we performed in a very good way,” Marquez insisted.

“It's true that if you make a mistake on a Sunday, then it looks like it was a disaster, but it was not like this.

“Always I take the positives and it was a super good weekend. The good thing is that we rejoined the race and finished in that 12th place.”

Brother Alex took the chequered flag in fourth.