Marc Marquez thinks his commanding victory in the MotoGP Grand Prix of the Americas was “perfect,” but he admits he worried before into the weekend that it would be his only chance to win before 2021.
On Sunday, the Repsol Honda rider won his sixth career race at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas, winning by 4.879 seconds over championship leader Fabio Quartararo after leading every lap.
It was Marquez’s second win of the season, and his second on an anticlockwise course, which helps his recovering right shoulder.
Marquez believes his race was “the one I dreamed of,” but he admits he knew it could be his last chance to win this season when he landed at COTA.
“It was a perfect race, the one that I dreamed of last night,” he said. “It is true that my plan was to try to lead the race from the beginning because the first laps were my weak points and then I tried to slow the race from the first four or five laps, and then when I felt OK, I just pushed.
“It was one shot, strong, from one lap to another one, half a second faster, and this was one of the main reasons to be able to open a gap. I am happy, really happy, because it has been a very hard season and sometimes I crash and I don’t understand, and sometimes I am fast and I don’t understand, and sometimes I am slow and I don’t understand.
“But this victory I was looking for because I know that maybe it is the last circuit with good conditions to win at, but my intention was to be strong, not like here, but strong in the last three races and try to be consistent and then let’s see.”
Marquez admitted that he worried he was “looking stupid” in the final laps as his Honda grew more difficult to control over the bumps, and that he nearly crashed with three tours remaining.
“It was so difficult, especially for the bumps,” he added when asked how hard it is to stay focused with such a commanding lead. “The problem is that when you slow down a bit then the bike is shaking even more and on the last lap, I was looking stupid because I was riding slow, but the bike was shaking a lot, so I said, ‘what is going on here?’
“It is especially difficult to keep focused, with three laps to go I nearly crashed at Turn 6, I touched the inside kerb and I nearly lost the front.”
Marquez won Friday’s practice session at COTA, although he stated that he wasn’t riding well that day. That feeling remained into Saturday, but he credits his victory to the fact that he didn’t push his body when he felt limited on the bike.
“The key point of this weekend was [Saturday], I felt also not so good,” he explained. “I mean, the speed was there but the feeling was not there with the track, with the bumps, and I didn’t push.
“Because if you don’t feel well and you push, then you are using a lot the muscles and the physical condition. Yesterday, I pushed only for a single lap and today in the warm-up is where I felt better and I was pushing more.
“So, the key point was yesterday, keeping calm and saving energy, and today showing and giving everything.”
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