Alex Marquez pinpoints what went wrong to cause Joan Mir Czech MotoGP crash

Alex Marquez says he was “just trying to calculate the move for the next lap” when he crashed at turn 12 and took down Joan Mir in the Czech MotoGP at Brno.

Marquez, who qualified eighth, was trying to make up ground in the early stages of the race when he folded the front on lap two in the second part of the penultimate chicane of the Brno lap.

From the outside, it seemed like a failed overtake attempt, but the Gresini Racing rider explained after the race that he was trying to evaluate the pass with a view to executing it on the next lap.

“When you do a mistake, you need to accept everything,” Alex Marquez told MotoGP.com after the race in Czechia.

“I was just trying to calculate the move for the next lap, so I was trying to go half-way.

“I went too deep and I lost the front, causing his crash.

“I am sorry to him and his team.

“We created that situation by a mistake in qualifying, starting from the back.

“This is a weekend which must give us experience for the future. When we start at the back, we need to be calm.

“It’s true that we aren’t used to starting from the back positions. Today I didn’t [do things] in the right moments.

“Sorry. We need to move on, and come back in Austria in a better way.”

Joan Mir: “Four or five times someone touched me”

Whatever the intention of Marquez’s move to the inside on lap two, it meant the end of the race for Joan Mir, whose Sprint on Saturday was ruined on the first lap when he ran long trying to avoid Johann Zarco.

The Honda HRC rider said said he felt “four or five” contacts on lap two prior to the one that resulted with him in the gravel.

“I knew Alex [Marquez] was behind,” Mir told MotoGP.com.

“But in that lap, four or five times, someone touched me from behind. But they weren’t able to make a move.

“Then, in that chicane, I felt a bike crash into myself.

“I went to the gravel and crashed too. That’s what happened.

“I can say what I felt but I can’t say what really happened.

“Obviously I was angry. He was angry for some reason.

“In the end, it finished with one apologising. That’s the reality.”

Marquez maintained second position in the MotoGP championship after the race but is now 120 points behind Marc Marquez and his advantage over Francesco Bagnaia has been trimmed to 48 points.

For Mir, it was an eighth retirement from the opening 12 grands prix of 2025.