Newly-crowned five-times MotoGP world champion Marc Marquez says he 'didn't understand' his FP1 crash at Phillip Island, and admits he is “struggling with the front tyre”.
Marquez crashed while bolt upright under braking for the downhill Turn 10 MG hairpin in the closing stages of FP1, leaving him in sixth on the timesheets, while Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa fell at the Doohan corner 15 minutes earlier.
Last year's Phillip Island race winner admits he found his FP1 fall “difficult to understand”, and found it “strange” Pedrosa and LCR's Cal Crutchlow suffered similar sudden front-end crashes on Friday.
“Today I didn’t start with a good feeling on the bike, it was so strange; all the (factory) Hondas crashed today,” said Marquez.
“We were struggling a lot with the front tyres. It was difficult to understand and we had crashes we didn’t expect.
“Sometimes I understood why but this time I didn't and it takes time to recover the feedback.
“But we made a few changes to the bike and I started to feel better and better, so this afternoon I was already feeling good but there’s still a lot of work to do for tomorrow.”
Marquez had a relatively trouble-free FP2, but could only muster seventh on the timesheets with a 1:29.739s, revealing “some new things” tried on his Honda did not work, and will revert to “what I know” for Saturday.
“I already tried some new things on the bike and they were not working,” he added.
“We’ll come back tomorrow. Today I already tried a new setup on the bike to understand well but it wasn’t working, so I just went back.
“Tomorrow I’ll have what I know and I’ll be 100%. Of course, I will try to fight for the pole tomorrow but everything is very equal at this circuit, so it’s difficult.
“I will keep pushing. The most important thing is to keep working for the race. My target is to be on top on Sunday, not tomorrow, but if I have the feeling I will try to push."
Discussion about this post