Marc Marquez says changes to his Honda’s electronics following his nasty crash in FP2 at Assen “gave me back confidence” before charging from 20th to seventh in the Dutch TT.
Marquez lost the rear of his RC213-V at Turn 7 during FP2 on Friday at Assen, the result being that he was fired into the air and deposited back onto the Dutch tarmac hard on his right knee and arm in an incident reminiscent of his Jerez crash last year that caused him to miss the entirety of the 2020 campaign with a broken arm.
Although escaping injury, Marquez admitted later that the crash had affected his confidence, leading to a sub-par qualifying performance that saw him start a lowly 20th-his worst ever premier class qualifying performance-though the six-time MotoGP champion says a change to the electronics on his machine-mainly regarding the traction control system-helped him to recover performance for Sunday’s race.
He charged back to finish seventh in the 26-lap encounter despite suffering from arm pump in his still-recovering right appendage in the closing circulations, Marquez lauding his team for the changes to the electronics that allowed him “ride well again.”
“I’m very happy today, of course when you check the final result and see seventh place you say it was just a normal race but we cannot forget I started from 20th,” said Marquez.
“I pushed a lot in the beginning and also in the middle of the race I did a big mistake where I went onto the green and lost a lot of seconds, so I lost the front group.
“From that point I just tried to come back, and I was able to fight back and ride until the end in a good way and then in the last laps had a good battle with Aleix (Espargaro) and Pecco (Bagnaia).
“I was just following Pecco because I was destroyed physically, I had arm pump and I couldn’t ride like I wanted but when I got back to the box I thanked the team and Honda because after the big crash on Friday they gave me back the confidence by changing some parameters on the traction control and electronics.
“These changes gave me back the confidence and I was able to ride well again, it’s true that yesterday my whole body was painful but today I felt better.
“The real potential of the bike was a podium today, starting at the front the bike had the possibility to fight for third place and I could see (Joan) Mir there in third but he was just a little too far.
“I am happy nonetheless, and now we have the summer break where I can rest and work for the second part of the season.”
