Reigning MotoGP World Champion Marc Marquez racked up an incredible five crashes over three days of testing at Qatar with two using development aero fairings.
The Repsol Honda man threw it up the road twice on Friday, putting the second down to track conditions while yesterday he admitted at least one was his fault but qualified that by saying this is what happens when you ride on the limit, trying to make up tenths on the brakes.
"The last day was not the best of the pre-season. It was difficult, because I crashed, especially in the last hour I crashed twice. On the long run I lost the front. It was my mistake, but better to happen now. Here you have many accelerations, a lot of corner speed and we are losing in those areas. Then you try to push everything on the brake point and it is more critical,” said Marquez, speaking at the track.
"The point is I'm a rider that from the first to last lap, is always on the limit. I try to be there in a good lap time, in 1m 55s. But this is a risk. Of course it's easier to be in '56s and then push for one or two laps. But I'm working for the race.
"The first crash at the end of the night was trying some special thing and the bike did something strange, but the second was my mistake. But it's better to have all the problems in these three days, because on the first day it was like everything was in the opposite way. When you start the test in not a good direction, with not so good feeling, then it's difficult to re-adjust everything.
"We lost one day and a half with a stupid thing, which when we changed the bike changed completely. Today we tried to recover all this time we lost, but there was not enough time. People will just see the crashes, but for the rhythm I think we are not so bad. It's strange to say, because we are far [on the timesheet] but for race rhythm there is one rider who is faster than the others - that is Vinales - but then we can fight."
