Alex Marquez says he is happy to be called ‘Mr P2’ for the rest of the season after taking the lead of the MotoGP championship at COTA.
Marquez finished second in Sunday’s Grand Prix behind Francesco Bagnaia, which sees him take the lead the riders’ standings for the first time in his career.
The Spanish rider says he “needs to enjoy the moment” but stresses he is well aware of the quality the GP24 currently has.
“If you said to me before the first race, ‘You will be leading the championship’ I would have said, ‘You’re crazy!’” said Marquez via Crash.net.
“We are ‘Mr P2’, but I’m happy with that! I don’t have any problem making P2 from here until the end.
“We need to enjoy the moment. We know what we have, we need to approach every race like we are doing and try to extract the 100% potential. I will try to keep going like this.”
COTA ‘the worst’ race of the season – Alex Marquez
Despite retaining his record of second-place finishes in 2025, Marquez admitted the race in Austin felt the worst in terms of his feelings on the bike.
The Gresini rider lost ground on both his brother Marc Marquez and Francesco Bagnaia in the early stages of the race, which he attributes to the difficult track conditions.
“If we compare my performance in Thailand, Argentina, and here, this was the worst in terms of feeling and how I was approaching all the corners,” he explained.
“After the first few laps, I saw they were going faster than me. I had a big moment losing the front at Turn 10, and said, ‘OK, today we need to be third. We need to be really calm.’
“Then when I saw Marc [Marquez] crashing, I said, ‘OK, pay attention.’
“I’m really, really happy with how we are managing everything, how we are really consistent in the top three. That’s exactly what we need to keep doing.
“But above all, we need to enjoy this moment because, for an independent team, running last year’s bike and leading the championship is something really, really amazing.”
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