Mistakes cost impatient Marc Marquez

Marc Marquez was delighted to collect 20 valuable world championship points with a hard fought second place behind dominant factory Yamaha rival Jorge Lorenzo in yesterday’s Misano MotoGP clash.

But the world championship leader was left to reflect on two mistakes in the early stage of the 28-lap encounter that prevented him from mounting a more serious threat to an unflappable Lorenzo.

Marquez made both his mistakes in the hard braking zone for Turn 7. One came on lap five when he was attempting to pass teammate Dani Pedrosa for second, with Lorenzo already streaking away at the front of the field.

That dropped him behind home crowd favourite Valentino Rossi and another error ultimately ended his quest to hunt down Lorenzo.

Marquez said his mistakes would teach him to be more patient in the future but in only losing five-points to reigning world champion Lorenzo, the 20-year-old heads to the Motorland Aragon track in Spain later this month with a commanding 34-point lead in the championship.

Marquez, who is bidding to become the first rookie since Kenny Roberts in 1978 to claim the MotoGP crown, said: “These 20-points are so important. I struggled in the beginning of the race and did two mistakes. It was my fault and this is good experience because I need to be a little more patient. 

I lost too much time when I went wide but I recovered to close the gap to Dani and then we had a nice fight. When I got ahead I tried to go with Jorge but that was too risky. I was right on the limit for 10 laps and I was a little bit tired, so I preferred to finish second rather than get nothing. Maybe I was ready to fight for the win but I did the two mistakes, so this is experience for the future.”

Pedrosa’s hopes of ending his long running quest for a first MotoGP title suffered another big blow as he was beaten by Marquez for the fifth race in a row.

Like Lorenzo he sits 34-points behind the reigning Moto2 world champion and once again he was left struggling to stay in the fight with an edge grip issue.

Pedrosa, who has not won since the fourth race of the season in Le Mans, said: “It was a hard weekend and I was struggling from the first day. I couldn’t get a good feeling but in the race I pushed a lot from the start and had a lot of motivation. I lost a lot of time in the first two laps but I tried to keep my focus and I tried to make every lap perfect.

I was doing a good rhythm even though I wasn’t feeling comfortable and at the end I had to battle for a few laps with Marc and I made one mistake at the last corner and I lost touch with him. I did my best and I couldn’t do any better. In the last races I always struggle with the same thing. When I am riding with them in the race I always feel the same on the edge in the corner. If I can improve this then maybe I have a chance again to win races.

When I am at full lean angle I can’t really open the gas and I stay a long time without opening the gas, so I don’t have so much corner speed and after I have to be very aggressive on the gas to recover. I don’t know why but lately I have always had this problem when I have been fighting with Jorge and Marc and I always see that I lack in this point. It has happened now for four races so we must check and see if we can find something.”

For more from the Misano MotoGP race see the September 18 issue of Motor Cycle News.