MotoGP Portimao: Marquez ‘fully accepts Oliveira penalty’

Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez says he ‘accepts and respects’ the move by stewards to hand him a double long lap penalty for the next 2023 MotoGP World Championship round in Argentina after triggering an accident that eliminated himself and Miguel Oliveira on Sunday.

The pole sitter was running fourth coming into the third lap at Portimao when he got his braking wrong coming into the tricky Turn 3 hairpin.

After clipping the right-rear of Jorge Martin’s Ducati ahead, an out of control Marquez proceeded to T-bone into an unawares Oliveira, catapulting both himself and the RNF Aprilia rider off their bikes and delaying Martin.

Earning the swift ire of the partisan crowd, it was Marquez that is thought to have come away with the more damaging injury having fractured a metacarpal bone in his hand, while Oliveira appears to have escaped with heavy bruising.

It means Marquez is a doubt for the upcoming round at the Termas de Rio Hondo circuit next weekend.

If he does compete, then Marquez will twice serve a long-lap penalty as punishment for the incident, a ruling he fully accepts as he expressed his sincerest apologies to Oliveira, the RNF team and the Portuguese fans.

“First of all I want to say that I am very sorry to Oliveira, his team and the Portuguese fans because it was his race.

“I did a really big mistake today, of course it was not my intention to have this happen, my intention was not even to overtake Martin at that point, but I had a massive lock with the front.

“Maybe the hard front was not fully up to temperature, I released the brakes and the bike went inside. I avoided Martin but made contact with Oliveira. I straight away went over to Miguel and then in the medical centre I went to check on him – fortunately