After ‘breaking three bones and one ligam🦹ent in six races’, Marquez arrived in the UK insisღting he would prioritise bike development over risk on the struggling Honda.

But it was still ꦫa surprise to see a rider renowned for fighting tooth and nail over every place looking over his shoulder and backing off.

Marquez was 18th and well outside the top nine point-scoring places when he alღlowed Mir through with four laps remaining. They crossed the finish line just 0.25s apart.

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“I went out, I tried to push the first two laps, I saw that the feeling was not good, and then🔴 I decided to be calm,” Marquez said.

“In one point, I looked behind and I saw that Mir was coming, then I decided to wait for him, to follow him the last t🗹hree laps, to understand from the outside, from behind,𓆏 what's going on with the bike.

“Because in the end, it's the same to finꦍish 14th or 18th. And my ‘chip’ [mentality] was like in FP4 practice in the past: 30 minutes, 10 laps. And it's what I did, try🎉 to understand.

“Of course tomorrow I will try to do my race. But today, the feeling was no goꦰod so I decided to give some information to the team behind another Honda.”

And what did Marquez see?

“Following the others, I lose on acceleration. Following Mir, I never lose on acceleration. I was in the same line and I was able to follow him wel෴l.

“But following the others, everything becomes more and more difficult because you are losing on acceleration then ♏you try to recover oඣn the [corner] entry. So that's basically where we are losing more.”

Asked if it had been 🐻difficult to treat a race in that way, Ma🍷rquez responded:

“Yeah, but in this first part of the season, in six races I broke three bones, I broke one ligament. In the end the approach now must be in a different w🌠ay.

“Today, if I say ‘OK, now I will take a risk’, it was for 14th position. Not better. Maybe 5 seconds faster, the race. But not better. This means 14th positಌion, more or less.

“But it was not like I had 2 or 3 se🍌conds [a lap] in the pocket. I had half a second, three tenths in the pocket, not more.”

The sprint was much more positive for Marc’s br✃other Alex, who took his first MotoGP ‘win’ for Gresini Duc🔯ati.

“Of cꦜourse I'm very happy with Alex. Last year he was very close to being out ofඣ MotoGP, and this year he's showing he has the potential,” Marc said.

“On wet conditions he's super fast, in dry condit🥂ions also he's consistently in the top 10, top 8, and now this will giv🏅e to him a really good motivation and very good confidence.

“Already in the🌠 last weeks we trained together and he was very fast and very convinced, so now the next step is to try to be top 5, top 6 in dry conditions to make another step in the second part of the season.”

Yamaha's Franco Morbidelli w൲as the leading rider on a Japane𒊎se machine in 15th place.

The #93 will start from 14th agaiꦰn in Sunday’s gran🧸d prix, which is expected to be dry.