Takaaki Nakagami says he was “surprised” to be overtaken as easily as he was by factory Honda man Alex Marquez during the early stages of the Aragon Grand Prix.
Having held his seventh-place starting spot off the start and over the opening laps, the LCR satellite Honda racer was quickly caught by Marquez.
The Spaniard then caught out Nakagami at the final turn after only a handful of laps by driving clean up the inside of him, despite the fact he was still “pushing” through the corner.
While Marquez went on to mount a victory bid-ultimately finishing second to Suzuki’s Alex Rins-Nakagami was forced to settle for fifth by the end, helped by one of his customary late charges that saw him pass Franco Morbidelli on the final tour.
Nakagami expressed his surprise post-race at how easy Marquez had been able to pass him on fairly similar machinery-the former on a 2019 spec Honda while the latter utilises his factory ’20 spec machine.
“First of all congratulations to Alex (Marquez) he went really well, it looks like he had some extra side grip,” said Nakagami.
“When he overtook me at the last corner I was still pushing but he was able to turn inside me, which was a surprise.
“After that I was able to stay behind him but he was a few tenths faster than me, but I continued to try and push until the end and bit by bit I closed on Franco (Morbidelli), and I could see Maverick (Vinales) and Joan (Mir) get slower and slower and I did the best I could to catch them.
“On the last lap I was behind Morbidelli and I thought as we got the last corner I’d try to pass him on the inside, and this time it worked so I’m happy to get fifth as top independent rider, and hopefully we can fight for the podium next week. “
The Japanese racer continued to exercise his impressive consistency so far across the ‘20 campaign with his tenth successive top ten result, a feat means he still sits fifth in the overall riders standings with just four races remaining.
He is only 29 points down on series leader Joan Mir, meaning a realistic title shot could be on for the two-time Moto2 victor should he be able to find a second wind of form during the closing events of the year.
Nakagami also possesses the unenviable record of being the only rider within the top 16 in the overall standings yet to score a rostrum this season, though he was robbed of a likely second in the Styrian GP before an untimely red flag-and a lack of fresh tyres for the restart-caused to him to fall back to seventh by the end.
