Takaaki Nakagami insisted that Marc Marquez “did nothing wrong” in his nasty Turn 7 crash in warm-up at the Sachsenring that ruled him out of the German Grand Prix.
Marquez suffered a tough weekend in Germany as he tried to defend his unbeaten premier class record at the 3.6 kilometre venue that stretches all the way back to his debut season back in 2013, the six-time MotoGP champion suffering a total of four crashes across Friday and Saturday action at the Sachsenring as he struggled to tame Honda’s unpredictable RC213V.
Having qualified seventh despite crashing three times during qualifying alone, Marquez was circulating during warm-up on Sunday when he crashed heavily for the fifth time across the event at Turn 7 – the impact breaking a finger and forcing him to sit out the German GP with a view of returning for this weekend’s Dutch TT at Assen.
With fellow Honda riders Alex Rins and Joan Mir missing the event in its entirety due to suffering injuries at the previous round at Mugello, Marquez’s incident meant LCR’s Nakagami was the only Honda rider to take the start in the German GP – the Japanese racer insisting that Marquez did “nothing wrong” to cause his warm-up get-off.
“Before he (Marc Marquez) had the crash I was behind him and I couldn’t see anything wrong with his riding, the speed was good and I could see that he wasn’t doing anything wrong but he lost the rear completely and the bike didn’t stop the spin and he got a massive high-side,” explained Nakagami.
“I was scared because we use the same bike and I had the same feeling that that corner (Turn 7) was really tricky because you’re going downhill and I felt a couple times during that session and the race the same feeling.
“It was really difficult to manage because the bike is always moving with less grip, so we have to find solution to make the bike safer.”
Nakagami added that Honda’s current predicament “couldn’t be any worse” with three of its four pilots forced onto the sidelines for the German event, the two-time Moto2 race winner focussing on not taking “any big risks” until Honda can bring improvements to its troubled prototype.
“It couldn’t be any worse (current state of affairs) because we are normally four bikes with four riders and today I was the only Honda on track so hopefully all three riders have a speedy recovery,” continued Nakagami.
“We are in a really tough moment but at least I feel OK, it’s difficult but I won’t give up and I believe that all of HRC have some ideas to improve the bike to make it more competitive.
“I don’t want to be fighting all year for 15th, but all I can do for now is keep pushing and don’t take any big risks.”
