Marc Marquez was left feeling “completely exhausted” by the time he caught up to the front two riders of Francesco Bagnaia and Jorge Martin in their three-way battle for victory in the MotoGP French Grand Prix at Le Mans.
The Gresini Ducati rider had it all to do after missing out on a spot in Q2 in qualifying, which saw him start in 13th for both the Sprint and main race.
Despite the below-par qualifying for the eight-time champion, the Sprint saw him recover to a superb second-placed finish.
Marquez repeated this feat on the Sunday, but admitted to Autosport post-race he was unsure whether he could fight for the victory despite making a last-lap overtake on Bagnaia to claim second.
“I was not convinced because when I arrived to them, I was completely exhausted,” Marquez said having scored a second grand prix podium with Gresini on the team’s 1000th GP.
“I was pushing all the race, no time to relax, and then I arrived to them and I tried to attack.
“But then I said ‘hmm, I’m not feeling well now on the bike’ and I saw also Pecco had good acceleration. So, it was difficult to find the point to overtake because he was also defending well on Turn 3.
“But on that last lap, I said ‘I will be there to see if something happens’.
“I saw Pecco was not attacking Martin, so I go out well from that Turn 8 and in Turn 9 I tried. I was able to stop well.”
Marquez thinks that the probability of winning the French GP would have been higher had he not been in a long tussle with VR46 Ducati rider Fabio Di Giannantonio.
“That fight on those laps was strange because you need to understand sometimes which part of the race you are, and if some rider is coming from the back you cannot lose two seconds there because we lost 1.5s in that chicane with a contact; I had the position already,” he added.
“But I forget [this battle afterwards] and I kept going, and we did an amazing pace.
“It’s true that without that battle I had more chance because I would have more laps behind them. But that second place, today, was more than better.”
Marquez is now third in the riders standings on 89 points, two behind Bagnaia in second.
Martin leads the title race thus far with a tally of 129 points.
