It’s fair to say that Sunday’s Thai Grand Prix was something of a disaster for Gresini Ducati rider Marc Marquez - but given what transpired after his crash it could've and probably should've ended up even less fruitful for the six-time MotoGP champion.
With rain arriving for the main event at the Chang circuit after a dry sprint race on Saturday where Marquez battled to fourth, he looked an obvious favourite for victory - and it looked to be playing out that way when Marquez moved up into second place on the fourth lap as championship leader Jorge Martin made a mistake from the lead.
From there, Marquez very much looked to be fermenting a plan to deny the race victory to Pecco Bagnaia, but despite a couple of lunges against his 2025 team-mate at the final corner of the Thai circuit, he was unable to make a move stick.
Then, disaster struck on lap 14 of 26, when he ran wide and, despite his best efforts, ended up on the ground when he struck the kerbs on the exit of Turn 8.
Humans make mistakes, Today was our turn. Even with the crash we went back on track and got the P11!#ThaiGP pic.twitter.com/O0WmZjSX1G
— Marc Márquez (@marcmarquez93) October 27, 2024
“We were the fastest today,” he explained afterwards, “but now two or three hours after the race, maybe we weren’t patient enough at that moment.
“It’s true that it was super tricky because it was not easy to overtake Bagnaia in a clear way, and I was always planning a clear overtake. I had the speed, I had more chances.
“I just had one and a half degrees more [of lean angle] in that corner, I lost the front, and I couldn’t save it. It was very close, but we are humans, we do mistakes, and today it was my turn.”
Mir clash and penalty
However, while others may have parked it after the crash, Marquez carried on - and started a chain of other events that ended up being perhaps reminiscent of the Marquez of old.
In carving through the field, he made contact with Repsol Honda rider Joan Mir - the lunging overtake leaving Mir, already struggling with an issue on his bike, well off the track and fuming at Marquez.
“Over the limit,” the 2020 world champion fumed afterwards. “It was very similar as in the sprint race in Jerez, the same.
"I will not give any comment because always when I give a comment it turns in the opposite way for me. I will let you judge these things.”
Blaming the contact in part on Mir’s defensive riding and in part on his own lack of a rear brake following the crash, Marquez was handed a penalty to drop one position - but played the rules to his favour to minimise the damage.
Catching Taka Nakagami in front, he passed him very briefly before allowing the Japanese racer back in front and then immediately overtaking him again on the straight coming out of the corner.
It was enough to count as having served the penalty - but the initial change of position was so short-lived that it was never even reflected on the timing, and race control had missed it until a post-race review, which is why Marquez was initially moved down a place in the classification and then restored to 11th.
“I imagined I would get the penalty,” he admitted when asked by The Race. “Already before the brake point, I was parallel with Joan, but for me what happened is that he had lost three positions in the previous lap and he just tried not to give up.
“In one point, he released the brake and went in, and I didn’t have any option because I didn’t have the rear brake after the crash. And then contact.
“I knew I would receive a penalty, but I thought I would attack, catch the rider in front and overtake him, let him pass and overtake again, and that is what I did.”
Mir - at that point seemingly unaware of the exact manner Marquez served his penalty in - was already incensed enough by the nature of the penalty itself when speaking to the media, describing the decision-making that led to the sanction as not "professional".
“The people that get paid for this, it's not possible that they don't see it! That you have a problem with one rider, then they recover many positions more, and at the end of the race you take back one position... and what happened with me?
“I lost three when you hit me! For sure it's not right, how they take the decision. The most logical thing to do is when this happens - it happened a lot of times with me in the past, when I touched somebody - long lap [penalty].
“You make a long lap, you lose the positions that you probably made me lose. And this is the logical thing.”
Suit mishap
However, Marquez’s race dramas weren't over still - with the Gresini rider lucky to escape a different sanction after riding the final 10 laps of the race following the crash with his leathers undone.
Not the first time that it’s come up with Alpinestars in particular, it most notably happened to Fabio Quartararo at the 2021 Catalan Grand Prix, with a subsequent three-second penalty demoting him off the podium.
A similar issue for Martin at the Indian GP last year was resolved when he was able to sit up during the race and re-zip his suit after race control had sent him a dashboard message informing him of the equipment issue.
However, with the control tower seemingly missing Marquez’s similar issue, he carried on without pulling over or coming into the pits - despite his leathers seemingly growing more and more open as the chequered flag approached.
“I think the suit opened in the crash, when the airbag deployed,” he explained when asked by The Race. “There was a lot of pressure in the shoulders, and we have a security system [to prevent it opening], but it came off.
“It was just a little bit, but when we finished the race, on that lap, I felt like it opened more.”
With a chest-facing onboard camera on his bike, it’s apparent that his assessment of his suit as only being opened ‘a little bit’ is somewhat optimistic, though, with the zip almost half pulled down by the time he crossed the finish line.
The Race approached race control for comment but had not received a reply at the time of publishing.
