Why Alex Marquez was angry despite comeback from double crash at Jerez

Alex Marquez appears to be the man least impressed by his remarkable comeback after two crashes on Friday at the Spanish Grand Prix.

The younger Marquez was the class of the field in all day at Jerez, despite a low-speed accident in the morning and then a heavy tumble at the beginning of the hour-long afternoon practice.

Following the second fall, which came as the Gresini Ducati rider followed brother Marc into the fast right-hander at Pons, there was some doubt as to whether Alex would even be able to return to action in the session. He spent much of it in his Gresini motorhome, where he was nursing an arm that had not enjoyed its trip through the gravel trap.

But he emerged with 16 minutes to go in the session – just in time for the real push for a place in Q2 to begin.

After all, he had been fast all day in between crashing, setting the fastest time in Free Practice 1 in the morning – impressively topping all four sectors. For the man who has routinely given best to his brother so far this season, it wasn’t an afternoon to sit out injured.

Alex duly delivered, shooting to the top of the timesheets with two minutes of the session remaining. He was a tenth of a second faster than Francesco Bagnaia, with his brother only fourth and missing his usual peerless pace on MotoGP’s first day of action in Europe this season.

Alex’s time of 1m35.991s was the first tour of the Jerez circuit a MotoGP bike has ever made below the 1m36s mark. And he achieved this with a set of medium tyres while all his rivals had a soft rear. As his team manager Michele Masini put it afterwards, “our tyre plan was f***ed up” by the crash early in the session.

Marquez may have had a degree of luck for this lap time to stand as a flurry of accidents late in the session led to yellow flags and rivals’ laps being interrupted or cancelled. But there was no questioning the quality of his lap, particularly under the circumstances.

Yet Alex himself, who lies 17 points adrift of his illustrious brother in the standings, was having none of the praise when he spoke to media. He lamented not only his mistakes but the loss of valuable race preparation time in both sessions.

“The main objective was to be in Q2 and we managed that quite well,” he said. “But I’m not happy about the day. We didn’t do the job and the work that we needed to do.

“Today I was just too confident with the bike. I wasn’t feeling the limit. I was just trying to push it and I didn’t realise the limit was there. I’m angry because it was a mistake to get too confident.”

On that subject, Alex also let slip a line used by a certain Ducati rider on his way to a world title.

“The bike was too stable and too good,” he said, echoing the words of Bagnaia after the Italian had fallen out of the lead at COTA in 2023.

“We need to control that risk a little bit because, Fridays like this…OK, today nothing happened, but it can affect us for the championship.”

Alex Marquez, Gresini Racing

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

When pressed, Marquez did reluctantly agree there had been some positives to his performance.

“Yes, we’ve done records, first places, everything you want in the morning and the afternoon. But we haven’t done the work you really have to do on a Friday. So I have a bittersweet taste.

“But we came back in a good way. The best way to say sorry to the team for mistakes is to be fast. So I was just trying to do that.”

Marquez confirmed that he would not take any injury problems into the weekend following the pair of crashes on Friday, despite the second one causing a loss of feeling in his hands in the immediate aftermath.

“It was a very fast impact, and very clean, but the stones at 200 km/h hurt and sting a lot,” he reported. “So that was the biggest problem.

“I couldn’t feel my hands because of the abrasions caused by the gravel. It was just that. I was fine, but my arms were asleep and I couldn’t feel what was happening.

“Now I’m just a little bit bruised, as is normal. But physically I am quite OK.”