It wasn’t the best performance for Marc Marquez in Austria: “We had an issue with the valve, and the ride height device didn’t engage, which made it difficult to warm up the tire.”
A crash and a fourth-place finish: not quite the result Marc Marquez had hoped for after today’s race at the Red Bull Ring. The eight-time world champion is now 83 points behind the championship leader (CHECK MotoGP standings HERE). The ninth title, at least for 2024, seems like a distant hope given the inconsistent performance of the rider from Cervera.
This season, however, will serve as preparation for his move to Ducati Lenovo in 2025. Bagnaia, his future teammate in Red, is currently the benchmark in MotoGP, making it clear that competing against him for the title next year won’t be easy.
Marquez reflects: “Today, everything had to go wrong”
Here’s what Marc Marquez told Sky Sport: “The start? I believe today was the day when someone decided that ‘everything had to go wrong’. Yesterday, we already had an issue with the valve, which broke, but it was the last tire we had. We changed it at the last minute, and it was cold, so during the sighting lap, I was thinking about that. I activated and deactivated the ride height device to warm up the tire, but then it didn’t engage again, so we had a bad start. But going from 14th to 4th is not bad”.
“Some weekends, like in Catalunya, I had a terrible feeling and still finished 2nd in both races. Here, I felt great, but the result was less so. This was the weekend where I felt the most competitive on the Ducati, so I thought I had a shot at winning today. But I’m not disappointed”.
“I feel better when the tire wears down, from lap 7-8 onward. With the new tire, I still struggle, and I need to understand how to improve. Apart from that, I feel good and have a good connection with this Ducati. We need to keep working, but no one said it would be easy today”, Marquez concluded.
Photo: Marc Marquez
