Alex Marquez’s hopes for a return to the Top 6 of MotoGP at the Thai Grand Prix were dashed before the Sunday race even started after he crashed on the sighting lap at Turn 11.
The crash dropped him from his initial P9 qualifying position to the back of the grid, forcing him to fight his way through the pack in far from ideal circumstances. “First of all, and I already said to the team, sorry because it was my mistake.”
Marquez was quick to clarify that this wasn’t an issue of his concentration slipping but rather a test of the wet grip on the T11 kerb – a line he’d successfully used in the warm-up session, where he was “cutting the kerb in Turn 11 all the laps.”
Panic on the sighting lap! 😮@alexmarquez73 has dropped it! 💥#ThaiGP 🇹🇭 pic.twitter.com/3Fc7sKx0l3
— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) October 27, 2024
What he hadn’t anticipated, however, was how much additional water had collected there by the time he hit the track for the sighting lap.
“So, I said ‘I will try with a little bit of gas, but not full, to go there and see how is the grip in that kerb. But when I went in there it was like ice, and when I realized, I was already on the ground.”
The incident forced him to switch to his second bike, still equipped with a dry setup. The Spaniard admitted some luck was on his side in that crashing on the sighting lap may have saved him from a more dangerous incident in the race.
“I was lucky to crash in that lap, because it was in my mind to try that line. So, I would have crashed in the warm-up lap or the first lap of the race when everybody would have been there. Still, that mistake, a MotoGP rider cannot make.”
Reflecting on what could have been, Marquez believes he could have secured a solid P8 finish had he started from P9. But with the 2023 Ducati, he’s still chasing the same wet-weather confidence he had in his previous setups.
“With this ’23 bike, I don’t have a really good feeling. With the 2022 I was feeling super strong in the wet, and on the Honda also. But with this GP23 we are still missing something on the rain set-up.”
