MotoGP Austin: Marquez on the ‘attack from the beginning’

Marc Marquez’s comeback at COTA got off to a flying start on Friday as the Repsol Honda rider sat sixth in the MotoGP standings.

Initially claiming he was taking a cautious approach to the weekend after suffering his second bout of diplopia in just six months, Marquez was on the ‘attack’ from the outset.

“Today was my day,” Marquez exclaimed. “In the team was my day, just try to understand again the bike, try to find again the confidence and just tried to do it my way - attack from the beginning!

“Already on the first run I tried to push one single lap to understand where was the bike then I saw that okay was not bad.

“But since that point I just tried to understand where riding smooth, try to find the limit in some corners. We know where we are losing a lot so we need to keep working for tomorrow and try to find something on the setup.

“The asphalt is much better, they did a great job,” he continued, on the new COTA conditions after winter saw half the Austin layout resurfaced in bid to battle the deepening and dangerous bumps.

“The grip is much better than last year. Last year one of the good things for us was low grip, because everything was slower. Now that the grip is very high, especially on the T1 and T3 but then in T1 is difficult on the change of direction when the grip is high.

“Now we need to understand well how to set up the bike for these conditions. Also this new bike, here in Austin, is working very, very different compared to last year and it’s another thing that I’m not very happy on some points but we need to find a way to be faster.”