Marquez “gave up” and accepted podium defeat in MotoGP Italian GP

Having cleared the factory Ducati of Enea Bastianini on lap 18 of 23 after hounding him for much of the race, Marquez was chasing after Pramac’s Jorge Martin for second as the Mugello race neared its conclusion.

But with two laps to the finish, Bastianini was able to retaliate and retake third position on the entry to Scarperia, dropping Marquez back down to fourth.

While Bastianini went on to overtake Martin with a brilliant pass at the final corner, Marquez lost touch with the leading trio and finished over two seconds behind them.

It marked the end of his three-race podium streak and swelled his deficit to championship leader Martin to 35 points, with seven of the 20 rounds now complete.

Speaking of his Mugello result, the 31-year-old explained that he took too much life out of his tyres while chasing Bastianini for third and didn’t have anything left to put up a fight in the final laps of the race.

“For me it doesn’t matter [where I finish]. We know what is our right position right now and we know that here Pecco was super strong,” he said of his result. “In fact he did an incredible weekend. 

“But one more time we were very close to ’24 bikes. We were fighting for the top and I was enjoying, so super happy about the weekend overall.

“It’s true that in the race I was stuck behind Bastianini. I tried to overtake him but it was impossible. In the end it was possible but I already used a lot of rear tyre.

“But when I overtook him the pace was good and I was catching step by step Martin, tenth by tenth but on the last two laps Bastianini, you see, he had like a new rear tyre. 

“He was extremely fast on the last lap. I gave up. I said time to finish fourth and in three weeks time we will have another race.”

Marquez revealed that he received two warnings while going into the opening right-hander, which was enough for him to back off from the fight and consolidate fourth behind the trio of GP24-equipped riders.

“The front temperature went up, the front pressure went up,” he said. “I tried to come back, I tried to open a gap and come back, just tried to see what was possible to do. You can see how I braked in Turn 1 with both tyres, both tyres were sliding. I said one time is okay, but two times not anymore.”

Asked how hard it was to concede defeat in the Italian GP given his past successes as a six-time MotoGP world champion, Marquez said: “[It was] easy because I won a lot but I…