Marquez crashes, remains positive after title lead gets slashed

MotoGP championship leader Marc Marquez remains positive after a disastrous weekend at Mugello, having qualified on row two and crashed during the race. The reigning champion came to Mugello with a lead of 36 points but has had it slashed by arch-rival Valentino Rossi, to just 23.

Marquez came to Mugello off the back of three consecutive race wins, all of which were devastatingly quick and convincingly consistent, as the Spaniard heads for his fifth premier class crown this season. However, Mugello – a track which he has not won at since 2014 – proved to be a hard challenge this weekend.

“We’ve been struggling the whole weekend to be perfectly comfortable with these particular spec tyres, but I wasn’t suffering that much in the race today. Instead, the front folded quite unexpectedly, as I wasn’t pushing that hard, and I crashed, though I almost saved it! When I re-joined the race, our pace wasn’t bad at all, despite the bike being a bit damaged, so that’s okay,” said the 25-year-old, who was hoping to achieve a fourth consecutive win for the first time since 2014.

“Furthermore, we still have a 23-point advantage in the rankings, and this is also very positive; last year at this point we were 37 points back. Today also demonstrates what I’ve been saying for a while: things this year are pretty tight, the season is long, and anything can happen. That said, we’ll keep working as usual at Montmelò, where we’ll go back to the usual tyre spec, and we’ll try and come back strong.”

Marquez’ next challenge is Catalunya, a track which has undergone a layout change and a new surface since last year’s GP. Marquez was beaten by Dovizioso at the venue last year and by Valentino Rossi the year before in a thrilling encounter. In 2015, he crashed out whilst in 2014, he held of Valentino Rossi and Dani Pedrosa for a win – although teammate Pedrosa almost took him out.