Marc Marquez says he “exploded” with emotion after returning to the pits following a brave ride to seventh in his first race in nine months in the Portuguese Grand Prix.
Marquez qualified sixth just 0.259s behind pole-man Fabio Quartararo having run within the top ten across the entire weekend before making a characteristically aggressive start to move into fourth at the start of the encounter.
He soon dropped back as he lacked the race performance to run with the front-runners due to the lack of strength in his recovering right arm, though would take the chequered flag a solid seventh just 13 seconds down on race winner Quartararo.
The Honda man said post-race his first race weekend in nine months was “a mix of emotions”, admitting that he “didn’t enjoy” the race owing to the lack of power in his right arm and that the best part was returning to the pits to find the support of his team, friends and family waiting.
“This weekend has been a mix of emotions, when I arrived in the box (post race) I exploded,” explained Marquez.
“I’m normally the kind of person to keep everything inside but I couldn’t control it, and I exploded not for the pain but just something inside me caused it but it was really nice to feel the support from Honda and my family.
“I felt today more like a MotoGP rider which is important, of course I didn’t enjoy the race as I suffered but it was the most important step (to race) for my recovery.
“Now it’s important to take a rest, I’m in a difficult period where even though I can race I need to rest at home, I can’t train with another bike and this is how it’ll be for the next two months, just going race by race and resting at home.
“The body is OK but I just can’t overstress it too much, sooner or later the first crash will happen, I will try to avoid it for as long as possible but we are riders and we must accept the risk is there, but soon we just need to try and forget all the mental stuff and focus on being a rider.”
The six-time premier class champion added that he found his competition return all the more complicated due to the range of new systems added to his RC213-V in the time he has been away from the track, revealing he told his engineers “to be careful” with the comments he gave about the machine.
“There were a lot of new things this weekend, the comeback, the new circuit plus many new things on the bike like the hole-shot device and new electronics package from Honda,” continued Marquez.
“I just rode the bike this weekend, I already warned the team to be careful with the comments I gave about the bike.
“My physical condition got worse every day over the weekend which is what we expected, but to just finish the race only 13 seconds behind the winner was something impossible to dream.
“I felt better during the mid-part of the race when I was alone, just riding as during the first part I felt like I was at school playing with all the big guys where you don’t really know where you are and they’re just much better than you, it was not my place and everyone overtook me.
“Then I found my place where I was able to start concentrating and in the last laps I was just sitting on the bike and riding, but the best part was coming back to the pit-box after the race, which was something that felt very nice.”
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