The Spaniard started the race from P13 on the grid and unlike yesterday, it was a stable start for Marquez, who made a few positions in the first lap and picked off one rider after another to find himself in P3.

However, when Bagnaia and Martin started trading blows for the lead, Marquez was quickly able to close a near two-second gap to the leaders to find himself in a three-way showdown for the win.

“Crazier than yesterday!” Marquez said about his race. “Because today was a good start but standard; it was not an amazing start and first lap.” 

“I recovered some positions but I was eighth or seventh, I think more or less and it was difficult to overtake but I was calm. I went step by step and when the tires dropped I knew that was my strongest point.”

“When I was in that third place, I said, ‘Okay, now it’s enough’ but the pace was there so I saw that I was catching them, I said, ‘Okay, I will try.’ 

“At that moment I kept pushing and when I caught them, but again it became difficult to overtake; however, I was still able to do that attack on the last lap on Pecco to finish in second place.”

After getting into P3, it looked like Marquez would settle for that position but the #93 expected a battle upfront which would draw him closer to victory and that’s exactly what happened.

Jorge Martin made two attempts to snatch the lead from Francesco Bagnaia with the latter move completing the exchange but by this time Marquez was already behind Bagnaia who was sizing Martin for a move in the final lap.

Instead, the Italian got his pocket picked at turn 9 by Marquez, who went on to finish P2 behind Jorge Martin, who won the race.

“Yeah, I expect [the mistake] because Pecco today had a very good acceleration, better than Jorge, I think but I was expecting Pecco to attack Jorge because, in the end, Jorge is leading the championship so Pecco must attack but he didn’t attack, so I attacked him!”

“This is something that in racing you need to be careful of!” Jokes Marquez. “If you don’t attack, they will attack you.

This was Marquez’s best weekend to date aboard the Ducati, with the only blip being unable to qualify in the front four rows which compromised the Spaniard greatly to battle for the win.

“So it was this weekend that we learned a lot. We learned a lot especially because here on Friday we made a mistake together with the team by choosing the wrong direction but then we came back on Saturday.”

“Fridays are super important to be in that top 10 because starting in Q2 is different. So starting in 13th place penalized us a lot in both races, especially this long one but maybe without 13th place on the start I was able to fight more with them [leaders] but even like this, I finished just one second behind Jorge, so amazing [performance]!”