Ducati’s Marc Marquez admits his collision with brother Alex Marquez on the first lap of the Qatar MotoGP race was due to his own error.
The brothers led the field down into Turn 1, but the Ducati rider made an error on the corner exit, which meant the Gresini rider made contact with his older brother.
Marquez lost a winglet due to the contact and was demoted to second after Franco Morbidelli took advantage of the incident.
The Spanish rider revealed he didn’t suffer any ill-effects after the contact, but accepted full responsibility for the incident.
“The contact with Alex was a little bit more my mistake than his mistake, because I just opened the gas and I felt like the rear was going,” said Marquez via Crash.net.
“I closed the gas again and he didn’t expect it. For that reason he hit me, and for that reason Morbidelli overtook me from the outside.
“But it was more a little bit my mistake. Luckily both of us stayed on our bikes.”
Marc Marquez: Qatar MotoGP round ‘most important weekend of the season’
Marquez completed his third race double of the season so far, but suggested the Qatar victory was the most important of them all.
The eight-time World Champion had only won once at the Lusail International Circuit in his premier class career but proved why he is the rider to beat with his victory.
“I’m super happy, especially because to myself it’s the most important weekend of the season,” Marquez said.
“Because Thailand, Argentina, Austin were good circuits for me but here was the first circuit where I said ‘ok, maybe I will struggle a little bit’.
“And I knew that Pecco [Bagnaia] and Alex and [Fabio] Di Giannantonio and some other riders are super-fast here.
“But I worked a lot during the weekend. I did a step on the right fast corners, which was also super important.”
Marquez also admits he was preserving his tyres throughout the race, which saw him overtaken by Morbidelli and Maverick Vinales.
“And as we see in the race, I did a different strategy because I just managed the front tyre,” he said.
“I knew that doing that strategy maybe Pecco would arrive because I slowed down the race a lot.
“Morbidelli was going but I didn’t care. I was just controlling my front tyre because I was not able to ride at my limit, because I have a riding style that pushes the front a lot.
“And in this circuit we struggled a lot. But then I just waited, when Pecco overtook me I said ‘ok, now I start the race’, and I started to push more.
“The last seven laps when I overtook Vinales, just I increased a bit more the brakes, the push, the turning and just tried to use the front tyre more. And that’s where I made the step.”
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