Marc Marquez speaks out ahead of French Grand Prix

MotoGP 2023

Round Five – Le Mans

Do you expect to come straight back to the level?

“Yeah really happy to come back, but I can’t expect a lot about this weekend. It’s true it’s been a month and a half without riding any type of bike, so step by step I will try to get back in the rhythm, the target for this weekend is to get that rhythm again of a MotoGP bike and then the next three weeks start to rebuild my physical condition. As you know I had a hand injury so it was hard to push in the gym and to keep the same physical condition as Portimao, but we’ll also try to work for the team, for Honda, I missed the test in Jerez which is one of the most important tests on the calendar. So we will try to test the things here. Unfortunately for us, the weather conditions here look a bit tricky but we will try to do our best and try to finish the weekend in a good way.”

Mentally how difficult was it to sit out injured again?

“It’s true I worked really good, the last winter was the first without injuries and I was able to prepare for the first race really well, and I felt really good. We were struggling during the test and we were struggling during the weekend but when it’s the moment we arrived, in the Sprint and qualifying, even in the race I felt strong for the two laps, but yeah, unlucky for us the hammer was there again and I get another injury. Anyway I keep pushing, mentally I’m prepared, when you have these kind of things it’s difficult to keep motivated but the most important is to keep your routine and try to come back as soon as possible, which I did. Now step by step to be on the rhythm again and have a good pace.”

Thoughts on the penalty…

“Yeah, for me it’s normal. When I receive the penalty the rules were – now they’ve changed – but when I received the penalty, when I went to the Stewards I completely agreed to receive that because it was a big mistake. On the paper and when we spoke it was for the Argentina GP, then after two days somebody changed it. I don’t know who, but somebody changed it, it’s not my fault. So yeah, now it looks like it will change for the future, I don’t think that’s the best solution. Changing that rule will create some things that for the riders, we’ll take more risk. For me it was easy for me to come back in Jerez, take the penalty and stop in the box. These things we need to avoid, so I think they need to think about another strategy.”

MotoGP Championship Points

2023 Le Mans MotoGP Weekend Schedule
Times in AEST

2023 MotoGP Calendar

RelatedPosts

MotoGP, Moto2 and Moto3 Entry Lists for 2025 season

November 22, 2024

Catalunya MotoGP Test roundup – Quotes – Images – Times

November 20, 2024