A victory to remember
Pole, Sprint victory and a repeat in Sunday’s race: Marc Marquez had a perfect weekend in Balaton. And to think that the Spaniard had categorically ruled out the possibility of winning only on Thursday in the press conference.
He told Dazn Spain: “The key was to manage my energy well on Friday, where I only pushed for two or three laps. Yesterday I felt better and gave it my all. Today towards the end of the race it was lucky that I had the medium tire, with Acosta on the soft. This gave me a bit of a breather, because my left arm was stiff from the effort.”
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Marquez thus gave himself the 100th victory of his career and gave the official Ducati team its 100th victory: “I had chosen the medium rear tire, but I thought I had made a mistake because everyone at Ducati – including Dall’Igna – was pushing me to use the soft. But I followed my instinct and chose the medium.”
At the start of the race, however, Acosta overtook him: “At first I couldn’t keep up with him, but I decided to be patient. In the end, in terms of tire performance, I had a much greater advantage, even though I was physically struggling.”
Marquez puts the brakes on the comeback
The gap to world leader Marco Bezzecchi has dropped from 102 to 72 points, is that enough to start dreaming of a comeback? For Marquez, it’s still too early: “Today we were lucky. In such a long championship, anything can happen, but at the moment I am not in a condition to make up ground. I would like to say that we are aiming for a comeback and that we will attack, but I also saw it this week. There were only two right-hand braking zones and this allowed me to manage myself a bit, but having a weekend like this is technically very difficult.”
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That said, Marquez wants to think race by race: “We will continue to commit. I want to enjoy it. Throughout my career, I have always put a lot of pressure on myself. Obviously, it’s still there now – I won’t change at 33 – but I also want to relax a bit mentally and have fun, because if I have fun, everything will fall into place. But it depends on my physical condition, which we need to improve.” Regarding physical recovery, he explained: “We have a very precise plan with the physiotherapists. We will try to get through the next three races, in particular Brno and Assen will be physically demanding. Then there will be the summer break, we will see if we can make further progress.”
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