Marc Marquez: Best 7 laps of the year, but Honda has two problems

It ended in his third DNF in a row, but Marc Marquez said he 'enjoyed' his attacking seven-lap appearance in the Catalunya MotoGP.

Battling both a lack of physical strength in his healing arm and shoulder plus grip issues with the Repsol Honda, Marquez decided to throw caution to the wind, saying "just burning fuel and tyres riding for P12, P14 is not me."

The Spaniard rose from 13th to ninth on the opening lap and was up to sixth place by lap 4 of 24.

But the pace then became too much to match and, in an effort to stay with Aleix Espargaro, Marquez pushed too hard in the braking zone for Turn 10 and lost the front of his RC213V.

"Today I enjoyed. I was pushing. I mean, I was Marc and for me it was the best 7 laps of the year. I was riding like I want," Marquez said. "On the grid I said, 'today it's time to take a risk' because just burning fuel and tyres riding for P12, P14 is not me.

"So this is what I did. I pushed in the beginning. I did a few overtakes, I enjoyed it, but as soon as everyone was in their pace we were not in the correct [pace].

"I knew that those 3-4 laps were critical, with the others riding in '40 low that was not my pace, but I said 'if I can keep with them these 3 laps I will be able to stay with them all the race'.

"But in those laps I took too much risk and what happened is easy:

"I was behind Aleix, I was losing a lot in acceleration and then I tried to recover on the brakes.

"I didn’t make a massive [late] braking point, because Vinales was behind me and he braked even later than me. But he was able to stop and I'm not. Just I locked the front and I crashed.

"Of course, I'm not happy about the result, but I'm happy because the way I did those 7 laps, I prefer to do a good 7 laps than just stay on the bike and finish."

The incident also helped Marquez pinpoint exactly where the beleaguered RCV, without a podium so far in 2021, is struggling compared to its rivals.

"In the acceleration side we cannot get the grip and in the corner entry we cannot stop the bike because with the rear we don’t have the grip also," Marquez explained.

"So it's two different problems, in two different areas, but I think the solution is going in the same way.

"We are braking late but we stop with a lot of banking, and when you stop with a lot of banking these things [falls] happen, like for me and Pol today.

"But then another point is that we are losing a lot on the acceleration side because we don’t get the grip. If you lose on the acceleration side you are losing all along the straight."

The silver lining was that in finishing the race early, Marquez, forced to miss the previous post-race test at Jerez due to the strain of the race weekend, expects to be able to put in plenty of work during Monday's test.

"In Jerez I had a very big crash on Saturday, then my physical conditions was worse than now," he said.

"Apart from that, we just did 7-8 laps today so it looks like tomorrow the physical condition will be a problem maybe in the afternoon, but in the morning, I think can test in a normal way.

"We have a few important things and it's true that for us it's much more important tomorrow than today. We need to try a few important things on the bike, just to understand.

"I mean we will not be like half-a-second faster but to understand for the future."

Younger brother Alex Marquez finished as the top Honda rider in eleventh place, followed by team-mate Takaaki Nakagami in 13th.