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Marquez had to “fight” bike to score Aragon win

Marc Marquez says he expected to be more comfortable on his Honda bike during MotoGP's Aragon round, despite having emerged victorious.

Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

The Spaniard failed to get pole position at his home track for the first time in his MotoGP career, due to him crashing in Q2.

However, he was in the lead group during the race and overtakes on Andrea Dovizioso, Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo allowed him to take his fifth win of the season.

Marquez made a couple of mistakes during the race and the Honda rider admitted he took many risks because he struggled more with the bike than he had expected to.

"Honestly, I was thinking that I will feel better this weekend and in fact, since the beginning, the feeling was not good," said Marquez.

"Just this morning in warm-up I felt good, but again in the race, I was struggling a lot.

"Very happy for the victory but I am happier because since yesterday I didn't feel like I expected with the bike.

"Since the first lap I felt not so good, I was fighting against the bike all the race. I nearly crashed many times.

"In the beginning, I didn't feel good, but I was trying to keep down, try to understand what is going on.

"At one point I say 'okay, now I push' and I started to push, and trying to overtake Valentino [Rossi] I made a mistake and I nearly crashed, I went wide again, I lost all the distance.

"I did that again for another time, of course when you do this kind of effort you stress more the tyres, you stress more everything.

"The physical condition, it was very demanding because, like I say, left corners I was feeling good, right corners I was really critical with the front, nearly crash a few times."

Home track gave motivation to risk victory

Marquez says he was torn between settling for a podium position and pushing for the win, evetually opting to go all-in because he was racing on home soil.

"The fact I was racing in one of my favourite circuits at home gave me this extra motivation to keep pushing all the race," he added.

"When I caught Lorenzo again I say 'okay now it is time to push, time to keep my pace' because I saw that Dani [Pedrosa] was coming faster and faster.

"Inside of me one thing was, 'the feeling is not good, we need to finish the race'.

"But another thing that was warming inside of me, 'at home race you must try, you must attack', and we did.

"The fact I raced here in Aragon today helps me a lot and I went out in the race, I start with the mentality to win, I didn't start with the mentality to finish second or third."

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