LCR Honda MotoGP rider Alex Marquez admits he made a “huge mistake” in causing the Phillip Island crash with Ducati’s Jack Miller, which has left Marquez with a penalty.
The younger Marquez was lining up an overtake on VR46 Ducati rider Luca Marini for seventh place at the hairpin-like Turn 4 right-hander – known since this weekend as Miller corner – when he lost control of his Honda.
Unable to scrub off speed, he made hard contact with sixth-placed Miller up ahead, both exiting the race on the spot and Miller left pained in the gravel.
THE HOME HERO IS OUT! 😱
Contact from @alexmarquez73 cleans @jackmilleraus out of the race and surely the title race too! 😢#AustralianGP 🇦🇺 pic.twitter.com/BNQOrE6PN3
— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) October 16, 2022
Marquez has been assessed an in-race long-lap penalty for Sepang next weekend by the stewards for “irresponsible riding causing danger to other competitors”, and accepted blame.
“I’m really sorry for Jack,” he said. “His home GP.
“I know and I understand that he was angry, he has all the reasons.
“I did a mistake, just I went in, I was really careful on that corner because I know it’s really easy to do a mistake – and that lap I said ‘OK, I start to attack a little bit’ because everybody was passing me in that point.
“Just tried to go in a bit more, my rear was locking and then I just released a little bit the front brake, I caught a lot of speed…
“Sorry for him, for his team. We lost a good opportunity today to make a really good job, a really good result, but life is like this. It’s racing.
“Everybody can make mistakes. But that mistake was a little bit too much.”
Marquez said Miller was fuming with him as he approached the Australian in the gravel trap, but that his rage subsided afterwards.
“I understand him. He also did it in the past, some mistakes in his first year, so… it’s something that to everybody can happen but it’s not an excuse. I did a huge mistake today.”
Indeed, Miller’s rhetoric in his post-race debrief was fairly calm.
The Ducati rider lamented the lost chance, having felt he was in a good position in the race.
After battling Francesco Bagnaia and getting passed by eventual winner Alex Rins, Miller felt he’d settled in and was preserving tyres for a late-race attack – and though he was passed by VR46 Ducati rider Marco Bezzecchi moments before the Marquez collision, he was planning to get back past at Turn 10.
“It was mid-corner [at Turn 4], just about to release the brakes and get on the gas – and got a front wheel to the middle of my spine. Not much I could really do about that,” Miller recalled.
“One minute I’m looking at the back end of Bezzecchi’s bike and the next minute I was seeing stars. I got pretty winded.
“Feel alright, just a bit bruised and whatnot. Will be alright.”
He refused to be overly negative towards Marquez, who narrowly beat him to the Moto3 title in a close and fractious season back in 2015.
“What’s there to be hard feelings about? At the end of the day we’re all out there trying to do our best. I understand he might’ve got a little bit carried away trying to get past Marini, but we’ve all made mistakes.
“I think he’s as devastated as I am to not be finishing the race, don’t get me wrong.
“But yeah, of course, first home grand prix after three years, it’s definitely not the way I wanted to finish it.
All our hearts went into millions of tiny little pieces 😭💔 #AustralianGP #ForzaDucati #DucatiLenovoTeam pic.twitter.com/ofQLbfOTWC
— Ducati Corse (@ducaticorse) October 16, 2022
“A lot of people have travelled – not only my family, a lot of families all the way around – travelled far and wide to see an Aussie do good. You kind of feel like you let them down, so it’s devastating but it’s part of it, it’s part of motorcycle racing.”
On the crash happening at what is now the Miller corner, he said: “Of course, it’s the irony, isn’t it, of it all. It is what it is. We’ll come back next year stronger.”
