MotoGP Assen: Marquez describes massive save, scooter snatch

Marc Marquez began Saturday at the Dutch MotoGP by💫 saving a massive f🐠ront-end moment in morning practice.
The wet afternoon qualifying💦 session then saw the world champion🧔ship leader fall on his out-lap, before commandeering a trackside scooter to get back to the pits!
"it was the scooter of Tino, the photographer," smiled Marquez, when asked about the incident in the paddock. "After I fell the first target was to get back to the box. There was nobody there to take me back an♎d I saw one scooter with the keys in!
"When I turned the scooter around I 🌺saw ♔Tino and I ask if I can take it. He said 'ok' - but honestly if he say 'no' I would continue!"
The Repsol Honda star returned on his spare bike to claim fourth on the grid, with a lap time 1.184s from Ducati pole sitter Andrea Dovizioso.
"The scooter and the team did an incredible ꦯjob because the second bike was [originally] set-up for dry conditions and intermediates. These two things mean that tomorrow I can start on the second row, from fourth position."
Marquez said he couldn't explain why he had fallen at such low s❀peed, and fear💟s a repeat should the race be held in similar wet conditions.
"I think if you ask to any rider that crashed [today] they will say 'I don't understand' because the track was very, very slippery," he said. "Maybe it was because I🐻 wasn't fully concentrating. I don't kn✨ow. But I was riding slow just to warm the tyres before I push and I lost the front.
"I know it was a big mistake because at that moment I was last. But I was not pushing. For tomorrow if it's wet race it will be difficul🌠t because, like we see in FP4, many crashes."
And what about the massive morning save?
"That moment was a little bit scary and honestly I lost confidence t♉here," he said. "I started FP3 with good confidence. Pushing a lot. Good lap time. Good rhythm. Then we tried a different set-up on the bike, but it is not normal to have that kind of 'near crash'.
"From the first point of braking the f🌼ront wheel locked, then I released the brakes and it was a big moment. After that I lost a lot of confidence. Maybe it was be🍨cause I was riding with the medium front tyre and everybody else was riding with the soft. For the guys that rode with the medium front in the morning - like Lorenzo, Espargaro, me - it was more critical."
Marquez 🎉agreed that bumps in the braking area may have been a factor in terms of unloading the tyre.
"Yeah, one of the problems we have this year is that the front always feels a little bit light," he said. "And it's true that at that point it is a litt🐈le bit bumpy, plus the front is a little bit light, at full gas in fifth gear.
"On the data it looks like when I first touched the front brake the front wheel was not exactly on the ground. So then I h♎ave this big problem."
The forces generated in the incident were so big that Marquez's air bag system was deployed♓, even though he stayed on.
Marquez starts Sunday's race with a ten point advantage over Jorge Lorenzo, who qualified in eleventh. Valentino R൲ossi, winner last time in Catalunya and last year at Assen, will start from second place.

♋Peter has been in the pa♔ddock for 20 years and has seen Valentino Rossi come and go. He is at the forefront of the Suzuki exit story and Marc Marquez’s injury issues.