Alex Marquez says he was pleasantly surprised to score Honda’s first top ten in five races, though lamented that “with this bike you never know how your weekend will go.”
The LCR rider enjoyed his strongest weekend in quite some time at Misano after qualifying 16th as comfortably the highest Honda pilot, before then notching up the Japanese manufacturer’s first top ten finish since June’s German Grand Prix in Sunday’s San Marino GP – the Spaniard taking the chequered flag 11 seconds clear of the next-best RC213-V of team-mate Takaaki Nakagami.
The 2019 Moto2 world champion admitted he was trying to head to the next round of the series at the Motorland Aragon venue next weekend with an “open mentality” given Honda’s struggles for outright speed throughout 2022, Marquez conceding that “with this bike you never know how the weekend will go.”
“We needed that result for the team because we’ve worked so hard, we’ve been solid all weekend throughout practice and feeling good with the bike,” explained Marquez.
“It’s good to have this result for the confidence for me and the team, it’s a really special race for the team and to be first Honda with a lot of seconds difference to the next one is good.
“With this bike you never know how your weekend will go, so we need to go to Aragon with an open mentality and try to make again a solid weekend.
“The last top ten for Honda was back in Barcelona, and the target for here was to between tenth and 15th and we managed that by getting inside the top ten.”
Marquez added that he “gave my 100%” to try and bring home his third top ten finish of the campaign so far, and that he was hoping he could find gains during this week’s two-day test at Misano.
“I gave my 100% all the laps and we were quite fast doing the pace we did in practice, we stayed in our rhythm so it’s not bad,” continued Marquez.
“We were helped by (Miguel) Oliveira having to do the long-lap on the last lap so we were a bit lucky with that, but this is racing and track limits are important.
“We’ve now got two days of testing, we haven’t got a lot to try from our side but we’ll keep working on details and try to be more ready for Aragon.”
Marquez now sits seven points adrift of factory Honda rider Pol Espargaro in the overall standings, with Nakagami now 11 markers clear – though Marc Marquez remains as the top RC213-V pilot in the riders championship despite having not raced since June’s Italian GP.
