ALEX MARQUEZ SAYS FP2 GRIP LOSS HELPED HIM MANAGE THE SPRINT IN SILVERSTONE

Alex Marquez said a “problem” he encountered during practice ended up helping him manage the tyre wear that shaped the MotoGP Sprint at Silverstone. While the Aprilia and Ducati teams set the pace in different ways, the Ducati group struggled as the race moved into its second half, with grip dropping off and Fabio Di Giannantonio and Marc Marquez losing ground. Marquez, however, felt he was better prepared for that decline.

Speaking after the Sprint, Marquez explained that he had already experienced the same kind of loss of performance earlier in the day. “I had this problem already this morning on the FP2 second run that I was super-slow and having this problem,” he said. From his perspective, that earlier session served as “the best training for the race,” because it taught him how the tyres would behave when their grip faded.

Even with that preparation, Marquez believed there was still a strategic choice he could have made differently. He felt he should have started the Sprint with the medium rear tyre rather than the soft. “Now, after the Sprint and all that, I think we did a small mistake to not put the medium rear [tyre],” he said. His reasoning was that accepting a small amount of time early could have allowed him to “recover a lot in the end.”

Marquez also pointed to how the medium option was not fully considered until very late. “I did the mistake that I never put the ‘option’ of the medium, you know,” he said. According to his account, Michelin raised the possibility before the riders went to the grid, after noting that Raul Fernandez might choose the medium. “Maybe Raul will go with the medium,” Marquez recalled Michelin saying, adding that Fernandez initially planned to use it but then changed his mind. “Then I was with the guys and said ‘Why not the medium?’ And then we started to think about it, but it was too late.” He accepted responsibility for not thinking through the alternatives earlier: “So, it's also my mistake to not think a little bit earlier and put all the options on the table.”

Despite the late tyre-decision issue, Marquez said he benefited from the way the opening laps unfolded. He described being “quite lucky in the beginning” because he had Raul Fernandez and Marco Bezzecchi ahead of him. “They were fast, but not extremely fast,” he said, which allowed him to save tyres rather than being forced into a chase. In contrast, he suggested others were trying to follow Jorge Martin, whom he described as “super-fast.”

For Marquez, the Sprint ultimately reinforced both lessons: practice can reveal how tyres will fade, and having every tyre option properly on the table before the start can make a difference when grip disappears later in the race.