At the Austrian Grand Prix, Honda took two championship points with them. Álex Márquez made sure of that with 14th place. His LCR teammate Takaaki Nakagami crashed out. Factory drivers Pol Espargaro and Stefan Bradl finished 16th and 17th, outside of the championship points.
The time lag was great. Álex Márquez was 27 seconds down after 28 laps. Espargaro was half a minute behind and Bradl almost 40 seconds. “Yes, what should I tell you about the race,” says the disappointed German.
“We are in a difficult phase. We knew that it would be difficult for us here. The race actually went as we expected. My start wasn’t ideal. The clutch slipped too much. That was the whole weekend the problem.”
“The start wasn’t ideal, but I came back from the first lap in 18th place. Then I tried to use my tire situation. I used medium tires in the front and soft tires in the rear. It paid off, but what you want to attack big.”
Bradl rode in the slipstream of his teammate for most of the race. “Pol and I more or less put our boot down,” says the test rider. “In the end I managed the tires and the fuel consumption.”
Espargaro has only collected two championship points in the past six races. “I don’t ride fast and I have a lot of trouble riding this bike,” admits the next-year GasGas rider. “It’s a very difficult situation.”
“We all have problems. I have a feeling that I have even bigger problems. It was a very difficult race. I had problems with traction and braking phase. Because of that I also had arm pump. I was very slow and because of these problems drove badly.”
Álex Márquez is catching up from last on the grid
From a Honda point of view, Álex Márquez was the man of the race. Starting from 25th place on the grid, the Spaniard was already 17th after the first lap. Bradl praises: “Álex Márquez got more than the best out of the motorcycle. He took all the risks and was rewarded with two points.”
Álex Márquez has also benefited from failures in front of him. Nevertheless, he was satisfied with his performance: “I drove the pace of the free practice sessions. No more, no less. I tried to keep up, protect the tires and be there in the end.”
“Okay, we’re really far behind. But since I started from so far back, we have to be happy with our work – but not with the result. Saturday was very difficult but Sunday was a bit better. We have to keep going and improve ourselves.”
Nakagami was just behind his LCR teammate until he crashed at Turn 7 on Lap 10. “A difficult race,” sighs the Japanese. “I didn’t have a good start and lost positions. I was behind Alex and had problems with the front tire.”
“It felt like it was very difficult to brake the bike. I couldn’t adapt to it. In turn 7, the front wheel locked in at the entrance to the corner. The race was over. I’m very disappointed. Luckily I didn’t hurt myself.”