Marquez: Today shows we don’t have easiest bike

Marc Marquez has said Friday’s events at Assen, which included a terrifying high-speed crash for team-mate Jorge Lorenzo, were the latest confirmation that Honda doesn’t “have the easiest bike on the grid.”

The reigning world champion was quizzed on the FP1 crash at turn seven which fractured Lorenzo’s sixth and eighth vertebra, putting him out of this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix at Assen, as well as next week’s outing at the Sachsenring.

The 26-year old conceded it was “unfortunate” for Lorenzo and the Repsol Honda team and but maintained he would “keep going on my way” in his quest for a fourth consecutive premier class title.

“Unfortunately, especially for him but also for the team, it’s not the best way of course, but looks like he’s struggling and looks like now he got injured again. And it looks like also that every time that he tries a little bit more, every time that he pushes with the Honda he crashes.

“So yes, it’s difficult to understand for sure for him, but anyway, Honda is trying to help him but we cannot lose time about thinking these things and worry for him.

“Of course, unfortunately for him, but just I keep going on my way and try to do the best for the team, for my championship. That shows that we don’t have the easiest bike of the grid but we are in the top of the championship, so we need to keep going.”

Marquez ended FP2 in a modest seventh place, his quickest time of 1m 33.413s, 0.775s slower than pace setter Maverick Viñales’ best. It was like a “usual Friday,” according to the Catalan, which was focussed entirely on Sunday’s race.

“I did like the usual Friday, just working on my race pace, try to understand the best option for the race and yeah, I just keep the tyres because this was the strategy,” he said.

“I knew that maybe I will be out of Q2, at least now, but no, in the end I’m inside. Just I keep going for try the set-up, even like this I was riding in 1:33 high, so it was important too.

“We are in a very similar situation like Montmeló, four or five riders with a very similar pace and now it’s time to work in the details to try to find these one tenth, two tenths to be faster on the race pace.”

The four-time race winner in 2019 was quizzed about Takaaki Nakagami’s brief test aboard this year’s RC213V at the Barcelona test and whether it was beneficial to hear the impressions of another rider with a different riding style to his own.

“When somebody tries the bike that you are riding, always you want to know the comments and the first impression, and yeah, basically it was more or less what all Honda riders feel,” Marquez said.

“Especially Cal and me we have very similar comments and Taka too, Jorge sometimes is in a different way but yeah, we are trying to work, we are trying to analyse all those problems and try to improve.

“It’s true that in this racetrack these problems are there, especially on the fast corners but at the moment even like this we are able to be there and Honda is working very good, already they bring some new things to try to understand.”