Marc Marquez reckons his Honda is “definitely still not good enough” despite fighting for victory in the Austrian Grand Prix, affirming the manufacturer needs “to make more improvements.”
Marquez made a strong start after qualifying fifth to move into the top three in the early laps before stretching away from the rest of the field with leader Francesco Bagnaia and series leader Fabio Quartararo to begin a three-way-fight for victory.
Despite running the soft-compound rear tyre relative to his chief competitor’s medium rear options, the six-time premier class champion looked to have the pace for victory as the race entered its final stanza as he battled with Bagnaia for the lead-until rain started to fall.
Like most of the leaders he stopped to change to his wet-shod machine, and was leading the stoppers charge to catch the gambling Brad Binder before going down at Turn 1 with only three laps remaining, taking the chequered flag in 15th after re-mounting.
Marquez says that while he was happy to be fighting for another success and was “more comfortable” with his RC213-V after struggling for outright speed in the first Red Bull Ring encounter seven days prior, he believes the bike is “still not good enough” to fight at the front in a regular basis.
“In the situation we are in this year I prefer to fight in dry conditions with the top guys than have a great result or even win in a flag-to-flag race,” explained Marquez.
“Therefore I enjoyed today a lot because I was there and fighting, Pecco (Bagnaia) was riding well and managing the race really well but in the end I was there and felt something special.
“Before the race it felt like there would be rain and I thought that would help me, but it was actually opposite and it became my enemy.
“I still enjoyed the race a lot and we made a big step this weekend but enough, we worked a lot last week and this for the future to try and make the bike good for me and we made a good step there, I feel more comfortable and I’m happy.
“The bike is definitely better but still not good enough, we need to make more improvements and I am riding pretty well but you have to look at the other Honda’s and you can see we’re struggling throughout the weekend, we are not consistent like the top guys.”
Marquez put his untimely crash down to not realising the rain had picked up so much at the first bend, the German GP winner ultimately aware of the danger too late to prevent going down and losing any hope of a second victory of the year, though still labelled the encounter as his “best Sunday so far this season.”
“It was definitely by best Sunday so far this season,” continued Marquez.
“Here though we struggled a lot last week and we understood why, and this weekend we chose the soft rear tyre which looked like a gamble but we believed in it.
“When I saw there was too much rain I felt because I was strong with wet tyres all weekend I would come in, and I thought that if I came in everybody would follow.
“It mostly worked and only (Brad) Binder stayed out, but I thought he only stayed out because he missed the corner but he showed high skill to stay out but was also quite lucky to stay on in those conditions.
“I felt pretty good on the wet tyres but there was heavy rain at the first corner and I realised too late, I was the guy leading the group and crashed so the other guys went wide (to not crash), but these things happen sometimes.”
