“I rode in a good way and this was the most important thing. I feel satisfied, because just being here was already satisfaction.
“It seems like when you are in the worst moment everything happens to you! Now I just want to keep going and keep pushing. I want to say thanks to the team because they believe in me and they give me the confidence I need, which is important.
“The other important thing is that I was relaxed. Even in warm-up I did just five laps to understand the bike and even though I had some doubts in qualifying my confidence was high before the race.
“I came here to compete and when you ride the bike you don’t think about the risk. I controlled myself to not push too much, just pass the riders one by one, even if I made a big mistake in Turn 1 when I was lucky to be in middle between [Takaki] Nakagami and [Brad] Binder. This was a consequence of [Maverick] Viñales moving at the brake point, so I also needed to release the brake. But I was very calm all the race, trying to control myself.”
His biggest moment came at COTA’s fastest corner, the downhill Turn 10 left – a massive tankslapper that seemed to go on forever.
“That’s one of my favourite corners! I had big moment, which was a consequence of one of our weak spots – when the bike starts shaking it never stops. With the last bike it stopped. It’s what you saw at Turn 10 – the bike started moving and continued until the kerb. This is something we need to investigate.”
Now Márquez’s job is to continue developing the all-new RC213V, which is giving its riders front-end issues.
“It looks like we need too much track to turn the bike,” he added. “We need too much track to use the rear grip and that’s not the Honda DNA. The Honda DNA was always a ‘V’ cornering style – pushing and turning in a short time and picking up.
“My overtakes were at the brake points because we have a bike that’s really good on the brakes, but to turn the bike and understand the front tyre is difficult. The bike is the complete opposite of what we had last year.
“Another important thing is that this is a circuit I know very well, so I already know exactly what the bike’s weak points are, so I can I say to Honda that they need to work there and there if they want to be competitive.
“Now we need to understand what will be our level at European tracks, which I don’t think is the level to win or fight for victory at every race.
“With MotoGP now you cannot predict a GP. You cannot go to a GP and say, this one I can win, this one I will finish top five, this one I will finish top ten. During the weekend you need to accept where you are and if you are tenth you finish tenth. But of course I will push and I will take risks. The target is try to be on the podium at every race but right now isn’t the time to fight for podiums.”