Ducati: Marc Marquez as we’ve never seen him before: “I’m the problem”

Seventh place at the Silverstone Grand Prix is not enough for Marc Marquez, who struggled throughout the MotoGP British Grand Prix weekend. The rider from Cervera, who had finished ninth in Saturday’s Sprint race, had to concede defeat to the superiority of the Aprilia and ended up behind both his brother Alex and Fabio Di Giannantonio, both riding Ducatis.

“If I’d finished fifth, I would have been very satisfied, because I think it would have been a better-than-expected result given the situation,” said the Catalan rider. “Seventh place means we had an acceptable race, nothing more. Now we have to keep improving. The fact is, if you want to fight for a championship, you can’t just wait for your home tracks.”

“You have to be at your best on every track, and right now we’re not,” continued Marquez, who flatly rejected the role of World Championship favorite. “No matter how much you might say I’m the favorite, I’m not. A different rider can win every Sunday. Right now, Martin is the most consistent, and he’s handling the situation better. We’ll try to make things difficult, but right now there are three or four riders ahead of me.”

Marquez, grappling with physical issues stemming from his serious injury last November, doesn’t mince words: “I expected this situation; it’s been like this since November. We’ll simply try to keep pushing. That’s also why I came back from an injury: to give it my all. Then we’ll see where we end up, without anxiety or stress.” In the standings, he’s 40 points behind the leader: “Being 40 points behind isn’t that much, but at the same time, it’s a lot of points. It’s practically an entire race weekend, so we have to keep pushing,” according to GPOne.

Marquez wasn’t the best Ducati rider: his brother Alex and Di Giannantonio, riders from the satellite teams, finished ahead of him. “What’s the problem? Myself. My physical condition is what it is, and I have to manage it—it’s a matter of muscle strength and endurance. This was the first time I was able to ride well in the time attack, but endurance is the area where I need to improve. My goal is to have fun on the bike: as I said last year, I’m ambitious. The way I approach the race and the weekend is the same, but always realistically and without taking unnecessary risks. Today I felt it was impossible to compete with the others.”