New footage reveals miscalculation in Marc Marquez’s COTA grid gamble
Fresh video footage exposes Marc Marquez’s detailed COTA MotoGP grid plan - and a critical misunderstanding of the penalty rules.
New video footage has emerged showing Marc Marquez meticulously planning his dramatic COTA MotoGP grid exit with Ducati crew chief Marco Rigamonti.
However, it also reveals that Marquez and Ducati misunderstood the penalty consequences - contradicting the rider’s post-race claims that they executed the “perfect” strategy.
The newly released footage on MotoGP.com tells a different story.
It shows the eight-time world champion was unaware of the ride-through penalty he would receive by starting the warm-up lap from pit lane, wrongly believing he would start last on the grid but with no additional penalty.
Instead, if the start had not been delayed, Marquez would have started the warm-up lap from pit lane on his spare bike, lined up back on pole position for the start, and then been forced to pull in and serve a ride through.
A ride-through penalty typically costs a rider 25-30 seconds in a race.
“I start last and that’s it"
On the grid, Marquez is seen discussing his options with Rigamonti, asking:
“If I go there [to swap bikes] and I exit from the pit lane, I start last, right?
"[Last] On the grid and without a long lap penalty?”
Rigamonti replies: “Yeah, you start last”.
“But without [a penalty]” Marquez asks again.
"Yeah" says Rigamonti.
At this point, Rigamonti hesitates, "I'm not sure how that works".
He then turns to team manager Davide Tardozzi and asks:
“If he [Marquez] now wants to start from the box, with the dry bike…”
Tardozzi correctly clarifies: “He gets a ride through.”
However, Rigamonti questions the ruling:
“No, without entering with this [bike]. Starting from there and just leaving this [bike on the grid]”
Marquez, still convinced that he wouldn’t receive a penalty, asserts:
“Yeah sure, I start last and that’s it.
“It’ll be as if [I] haven’t done the normal start procedure.”
Rigamonti agrees with Marquez: “He starts last.”
Rigamonti then explains the consequences of swapping bikes after the warm-up lap but fails to mention the ride-through penalty that also applies to that scenario, telling Tardozzi:
“Or he does the warm-up lap with this bike and then enters pit lane, he’ll start from pit lane.”
Tardozzi does not contradict these statements.
With his mind made up, Marquez instructs Rigamonti to ensure his second bike is ready and lays out his exact plan:
“When there’s three minutes remaining, if it’s [dry] like this we’ll go… The mechanics go back to the pit and I go.
“Tell me if the bike is ready.”
Then, cupping his hand to Marco Rigamonti’s ear, Marquez says: “Don’t tell anyone.”
After confirming his second bike is ready, Marquez states: “Let’s go with the plan.”
Rigamonti asks: “Flag to flag?”.
Marquez shuts down that idea: “No, when there’s three minutes remaining I’m going.”
The footage ends with Marquez sprinting off the grid to the Ducati garage, triggering around half of the grid to copy his tactic.
Race Director: “They Were Very Lucky to Get Away With That”
Race director Mike Webb is then interviewed, confirming that rules are in place to penalise such a move - had the start not been delayed due to safety concerns.
“We had a similar situation in Argentina 2018. We got together and rewrote the rules to make sure that anyone who changes the type of tyres on the bike by leaving the grid gets a penalty.
“So if there wasn’t the chaos that caused me to do a new start procedure - if we’d been able to continue, the riders who went and got their spare bike in pit lane with different tyres would have served a ride through penalty in the race.”
Referencing the new footage, Webb adds: “It sounds like the Marquez team were not expecting a ride through, they were perhaps expecting just to start from pit lane or the back of the grid.
“No, the rule is that changing tyres in that way, you [re]take your original grid position after the warm-up [lap] and you serve a ride through in the race.
“In the way that it occurred [on Sunday] with so many bikes and such confusion to get bikes and people off the grid, I called a new start [for safety] and they were very lucky to get away with that.”
Although Marquez initially benefitted from the restart, turning pole position into the race lead with his dry bike, he crashed out on lap 9.
Team-mate and eventual winner Francesco Bagnaia, along with fellow podium finishers Alex Marquez and Fabio di Giannantonio, had been among those to mimic Marquez by running back to the pits, triggering the start delay.
Only three riders - Brad Binder, Enea Bastianini and Ai Ogura - correctly chose dry tyres for the original grid.
Speaking post-race, Marc Marquez had also wrongly believed he could force a delayed start "if more than 10 riders follow me" off the grid:
"I said [to Rigamonti] ‘OK, maybe I will leave the grid’. Because I knew that if more than 10 riders follow me, the start is delayed and everybody restarts on the grid.
However, that rule only applies if more than 10 riders 'will start the race from pit lane exit', for example by pitting at the end of the warm-up lap.
Sunday's race was officially delayed 16 seconds before the start of the warm-up lap.
Peter has been in the paddock for 20 years and has seen Valentino Rossi come and go. He is at the forefront of the Suzuki exit story and Marc Marquez’s injury issues.
