Marc Márquez (P1) – “The coming together at turn one with Alex was more my fault than his, but despite the missing wing I felt no behaviour change on the bike. I managed the race as I wanted: I saw that Morbidelli was trying to pull away, but I wasn’t worried, as the priority for me was to manage the front-tyre wear. I knew that by riding this way, Pecco would have come closer, and it happened. When he overtook me, my real race started and I pushed a bit more in order to make the difference in the last ten laps.”
Francesco Bagnaia (P2) – “All in all, I’m happy with today’s result, as you never know what can happen when you start from eleventh place on the grid. The only thing that upsets me a bit is that on Sunday I’m always a bit more competitive and effective, especially in the early laps, and I manage to complete some overtakes. On Saturday, on the other hand, I always struggle in doing the same, so I need to understand what to do in order to improve and make a step forward. That said, I’m happy with the outcome.”
Franco Morbidelli (P3) – “This podium is a really good result, at the start of the Sprint I was feeling very good with new tyres and I thought I had the chance to stay with the top guys, but then I had some issues, and I couldn’t express fully my pace. Anyway, great P3 and fantastic podium with Valentino here, I’m very happy. We started with a great Friday, we had a really good Saturday, with a P4 in qualifying, and the Sprint was consistent, let’s see what happens tomorrow.”
Johann Zarco (P4) – “Fighting for the podium and having that pace and that feeling on the bike it’s something really cool. We’ve worked really well this weekend, and this result is proof of that and the work we’ve been doing since last year. I feel I can control the bike better now, and that allows me to perform at a higher level. Let’s try to keep the momentum going; we’re steadily making progress, and that’s what really matters.”
Fermin Aldeguer (P5) – “I’m very happy with this race and for the whole weekend. We have been competitive, we wanted the top ten and we finished with a fourth and a fifth. I put a lot of energy at halfway point to catch Zarco and Morbidelli, and I had nothing left in the tank in the end to overtake them. In any case I’m happy with my race craft.”
Alex Marquez (P6) – “It’s a shame for how this race went. I must apologise to Diggia because it was my mistake of calculation, and I believe the penalty was correct. I was forced to a comeback race and we must be happy with this sixth position: these are valuable points for the championship although there’s very little to celebrate. We’re heading to Jerez with a still solid weekend in our bag.”
Fabio Quartararo (P7) – “We didn’t have the great first laps again that we had yesterday. The first laps were difficult, and I was blocked by other riders, but for me the tyre drop was okay, so that was good. I gave my maximum, and today this was the best I could do. Let’s see what we can do at the next races.”
Pedro Acosta (P8) – “Much better. An acceptable race. I started far off and was 14th. It was not easy to come back but I had the same feeling as last year and no chatter. When we don’t have problems we can be very fast. Happy. It was very nice to ride the bike like this. We know Maverick is super-talented and he started 6th and all the small details count. He made a really nice race.”
Marco Bezzecchi (P9) – I tried to bring out one hundred percent in this race. We made a small step forward compared with Saturday. The bike was more stable, although we did have to sacrifice a bit of power to achieve more stability. We are still far from where we’d like to be, but we are taking steps forward and collecting important information. At the end of the day, we improved over the course of the weekend, so we need to try and stay positive. Obviously, all of us would like to do more, but sometimes you just need more time.
Luca Marinio (P10) – “I enjoyed the battle a lot! It was a good way to train my overtaking. A good race, the pace was there, and we were able to go better than yesterday. Honda and my team did a good job to find something in Warm Up which we kept for the race. There are a few areas where we can make the difference and a few areas we still need to improve, in a big battle like this you can understand these things more and more. Already for Jerez we have some ideas of what to try after seeing how this weekend went. It has been a solid first four races to start the year, a base that now we can improve and grow from.”
Enea Bastianini (P11) – “It’s getting better. From Friday until now I was more competitive. It was quite difficult to overtake riders in the race because if you try to do something more then I lost the line so I had to do the move again! The pace was good but I was also spinning a lot with the rear. The front feeling though was one of the best so far. Nice race. Maverick did a great job today.”
Alex Rins (P12) – “Today, I had a better start than yesterday, but it was still a tough race, especially because I was hit by a stone in the middle of the straight on lap 7. It really hurt, to the point that I did think about going into the box because it was really painful. But I gave it everything. Ogura was doing his race, but I was stuck behind him. When he made a mistake, I overtook him, and luckily also Binder in the second-last corner, so I still finished P13. It later became P12 after the penalty handed to Maverick.”
Brad Binder (P13) – “Not much better today. It was tough. We tried to change some set-up in the race and it felt quite decent until about ten laps when I started to have massive understeer and I was spinning a lot on the tire. With five laps to go the rear was toasted. It was a really tricky weekend and my guys tried so many things to help me be comfortable. It was super-good to see Maverick do so well and it will be good for us to see what he did differently and how we can learn from it.”
Maverick Viñales (P14) – “At a certain point of the race I thought I could go for the victory and even pulled away a bit…but we have to be very happy with the progress and all the steps we are doing. We are working in a good way and we need to enjoy these moments. What we did today was unbelievable. We put the bike right there and we showed we had the speed: we had showed it in many practice sessions but we had to put it in the race. We must be happy and pleased and this is the start. I want to congratulate the team because they are working really calmly and with a lot of positive thoughts and that’s what we need.”
Ai Ogura (P15) – “From half distance of the race, I lost the front grip and I couldn’t do anything more. I think I didn’t manage the front tire well in the first six, seven laps as I was focused on the rear and I didn’t care enough about the front. From Friday to Saturday, I made a big step but it seems that my riding style wasn’t really good for the 22 laps. I didn’t have any other way to make a good lap time after I finished the tire – everything was blocked. It just wasn’t good enough from my side.”
Fabio Di Giannantonio (P16) –“It has been an eventful race, my start was really good, and I was fighting for the top positions. We had the potential to be on the podium, then a strange and dangerous maneuver from another rider affected my race. It’s a pity, I got completely ruled out from any chance of doing a good race, we have to work to avoid these mistakes. Later in the race, I had an incident with Jorge Martin, but I am happy that he seems ok somehow, and that’s the most important thing, we all know how dangerous this sport is. Anyway, we did an incredible job this weekend, we were incredibly fast.”
Raul Fernandez (P17) – “It was very difficult. I feel good with the bike in some areas, for example in the stop and go corners where I feel very good, but I can’t get the maximum out of the bike in other places for some reason. I can’t ride like I want, I can’t enter the corners like I want and lose a lot of time there. We need to find something because I feel that we can’t turn the bike, especially in the fast corners – that is mainly the area where we have to improve. I don’t know why we had chattering and couldn’t turn well so, we weren’t really strong here, but this is no excuse for me. I think, right now, we are not on the level we can be.”
Somkiat Chantra – (P18) – “It was a tough race, although I did feel some improvements on the bike compared to yesterday. We’re working hard to keep progressing, and step by step, we’re getting there. I can’t wait to get to Jerez and kick off the European races!”
Joan Mir (DNF) – “It’s been a really tricky weekend for us, physically and with the bike. Losing Saturday with the illness and missing the Sprint meant that Sunday was very tough. There was a lot of things that happened in the race, I am still struggling physically. I will now focus on my recovery to be back and healthy in Jerez where I hope to show my form from before Qatar again.”
Augusto Fernandez (DNF) – “It‘s a pity I crashed, because I really need to complete as many laps as possible, especially since I don‘t have the same racing opportunities as the others. It‘s a shame, even though overall this has been a positive weekend. It wasn‘t the finish I was hoping for or expecting, but I did make progress. I arrived here without any pace, but session by session I got closer to the others and started feeling better on the bike. When I arrive in Jerez in two weeks, I know I‘ll be able to be more competitive and get better results. From here, I‘ll fly straight to Valencia tomorrow for two days of testing, so it‘s going to be a busy week for me.”
Jack Miller (DNF) – “That was the best I‘d felt all weekend—the bike was working well, until it suddenly wasn‘t. My rhythm was strong, and I was feeling pretty comfortable catching back up to the group ahead. I switched the map, and then just before the crash, coming into Turn 15 on what could have been my best lap, the bike suddenly started vibrating violently at the rear, so much so that my legs came off the pegs. I had to slow down, and even then my time was a 1‘53.9. Martin passed me, and I followed him into Turn 1, but at Turn 2, another left-hander, as soon as I leaned in, I lost the front. I managed to keep the bike up with my elbow, but when I pushed in deeper, it started vibrating again. I was off-line and onto the dirty part of the track, and the bike just slid out from under me. We saw very clearly in the data that something changed from one lap to the next. Why, we don‘t know. The tire looked fine, everything seemed okay, so we need to understand more about what happened. Honestly, it ended the way the whole weekend had been going. I‘m happy to be heading to Jerez: I think this bike will work well there.”
