Marquez explains crash that ended fairytale COTA MotoGP win bid

Marc Marquez has revealed that a persistent brake problem was the culprit behind him crashing out of the lead in MotoGP's Grand Prix of the Americas.

Marquez, who has six wins at COTA in his MotoGP career, had just overtaken Pedro Acosta for the lead of the race when he tucked the front in the hard-braking zone into Turn 11.

It looked like he had simply come into the corner too fast - and that was indeed the case, but, as Marquez revealed, it was because his front brake had not responded.

"I'm more disappointed because today the speed was there, the feeling was there, but I had unexpected problems with the front brake during all the race that gave me a lot of difficulties to ride," he said.

"Even like this I was able to be in the top group because the pace was not very fast. And then just I tried to lead as soon as possible, to see if the temperature changed on the brake or something, and the feeling was improving but unfortunately when I arrived on Turn 11, I braked and nothing was there.

"And then the second time [braking] was better, but still yeah, too much speed and then it's when I lost the front."

Marquez said the front brake issue had basically taken over his race, forcing him to rush to get to the front. He explained he was also having to hammer the brake two or three times "every lap" at the end of the back straight.

"Thee feeling was changing at every brake point, every corner, and that was my main worry, and in the end my main worry gave me what I expected. And then I fell off.

"You know that I'm a guy that if I crash, I say 'sorry, I crashed'. But today we had a lot of problems."

Marquez said, somewhat cryptically, that this was "normal for a new project". While he is new at the team, Gresini has been running Ducatis since 2021, and the 2023-spec Ducati he's campaigning this year is a battle-proven bike - even though it's had an iffy start to the season in terms of reliability, as just the day before over at VR46 Fabio Di Giannantonio's engine went up in smoke.

"Today we had a problem, we need to create the answer," said Marquez. "And during all this I think the team is quite quick and we will have an answer for the future."

Marquez said he "maybe" could've had the pace to win, but stressed that he'd made a tyre choice geared towards scoring a podium.

He went with the soft rear like all of his Ducati peers, while the eventual outcome of the race was a medium rear 1-2 with Maverick Vinales (Aprilia) and Pedro Acosta (Tech3 Gas Gas).

"I was more a little bit thinking for the medium, but then I saw that only two riders [out front] with the medium and all the Ducatis with the soft," Marquez said.

"So I said 'put the soft' because I had more speed than them. For that reason the choice was thinking for the podium, not for the victory."