Marc Marquez explains first crash on factory Ducati in Americas GP practice

Marc Marquez admitted that there was no need for him to push so early in wet conditions after recording his first crash as a factory Ducati MotoGP rider in Friday practice for the Americas Grand Prix.

Just 15 minutes into the start of the day’s running at a rain-soaked Circuit of the Americas, Marquez suffered a major highside at Turn 2 and landed on the tarmac.

The Spaniard was uninjured in the incident and was able to rejoin the session on his second bike, eventually finishing third-quickest behind Franco Morbidelli and Jack Miller.

However, it was notable as being Marquez's first crash with the factory Ducati team in an official session, although he did have a low-speed fall during testing at Sepang last month.

Speaking afterwards, the six-time MotoGP champion took full responsibility for the incident, explaining that he didn’t have a full understanding of the track conditions when he went down at Turn 2.

[It was] my mistake because it was not the time to have this kind of mistakes in FP1,” the 32-year-old told MotoGP.com.

“But with that extra motivation, with extra confidence, I didn't understand or I didn't check there was that amount of water on the racetrack and I had aquaplaning at Turn 2.

“It was a mistake. Not the time to make that kind of mistake, but okay.

“Then we just jumped to the other bike. The feeling was good. We continued our day, especially on slick tyres, I felt fast and comfortable.”

Marquez enjoyed a much better outing during the main practice session on Friday afternoon, as he revelled in mixed conditions to top the charts by seven tenths of a second.

Even then, he insisted that he didn’t give it all on his final flying lap, knowing that taking too much risk on a drying track could risk another crash.

“These were my conditions. I feel comfortable, I feel natural with those wet patches,” he said. “Every lap the race track improved a little bit, every lap I improved.

[On] the last lap I didn't push because that was not time to make another mistake. I already had a lap time to stay in Q2 [and] that was the target. Tomorrow the target will be the front row.”

With dry weather expected for the remainder of the week, the competitive picture could well change on Saturday as the sun shines again over COTA.

Marquez admitted that teams will have limited opportunities on Saturday morning to hone their set-ups before qualifying and the sprint later in the day.

“Tomorrow everything will be more tight and more close because today was very difficult conditions.

“The weekend will start tomorrow. It will be very difficult to understand the tyres and the set-up and all these things in only 30 minutes because we have only 30 minutes [of practice running].

“But let's see if we can understand what we need for the time attack and what we need for the sprint race.”