Violently hit by Marc Márquez at the Portuguese Grand Prix, Miguel Oliveira considered the maneuver of #93 “optimistic” but accepted his apologies. Several pilots even found extenuating circumstances in Márquez.
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Marc Márquez was the target of criticism following the collision he caused at the Portuguese Grand Prix. At the start of the race, the Spaniard failed to brake at turn 3, which led him to touch Jorge Martin and hit head-on Miguel Oliveira. The maneuver earned him a double long lapa sanction considered insufficient by Martín and Aleix Espargaró, dissatisfied with the relative leniency of the race direction.
Prompt to admit one’s faultMarc Márquez was finally the most affected in the accident since he fractured his hand and will miss the Argentine Grand Prix this weekend, but in the moments following the collision, it was above all the state of health of Miguel Oliveira that worried. Violently hit at the top of the right leg, he took some time to get up and he now suffers from a major hematoma. However, he did not want to incriminate Márquez: if he considers that the six-time Champion of the category has certainly lacked caution, he quickly accepted his explanations and his apologies.
“It’s a shame to have finished the race like that and also that Marc got hurt”Oliveira told the official MotoGP website. “He braked too late, maybe he was too optimistic to overtake. He had to avoid Martín because he wasn’t going to slow down enough and he mightn’t avoid me. no incident is intentional, that’s clear. Maybe in the first laps he wanted to gain places and I think it was the wrong place to do it.”
“We saw each other at the medical center”he specified. “I hadn’t seen the footage. He said he probably had a problem with his brakes. I mightn’t say anything special. There’s respect and obviously I accept his apology but at the same time, when you have a problem with the brakes, usually you brake a little earlier and you don’t try to overtake so that’s the main thing. He knows it better than me.”
Second at the time of the accident, Oliveira saw a potential podium on his land fly away, which only increased the frustration: “It was very sad to finish my Grand Prix at home like that, having only completed two laps and with a collision. I’m really sorry that it happened like that. I wanted to make a better start than [samedi]I was able to do it and I was really motivated and calm for this race, because I knew that I had a good rhythm and the speed to play in the top 5. Since Saturday, my worst position has been the sixth during the warm-up so I was performing quite well this weekend.”
Miguel Oliveira was able to get up following the collision with Marc Márquez
Oliveira also bears the marks of contact and risks being reduced to Termas de Río Hondo at the end of the week: “I don’t know if I’ll be 100% but I’ll do my best. I have a large hematoma on the right side of my hip so I’m going to treat that. There is no fracture but there may be damage to the ligaments so we will have to check with an MRI. Whatever happens, it will be treatment with anti-inflammatories. That’s all I know at the moment.”
A “bastard” turn that pushes several pilots to indulgence
Sunday’s incident arouses contrasting opinions among the pilots, between the most virulent and those who question the consistency of the sanctions. “If I had done the same thing, I think they wouldn’t let me run the next race”commented Johann Zarcowhich still remembers the reviews received following the 2020 Austrian Grand Prix. But Miguel Oliveira is not the only one to be relatively lenient with Marc Márquez.
I’m sorry Bagnaia Mostly attributes Sunday’s collision to bad luck, the Honda rider having lost control of the bike in a tricky corner and with two riders right in front of him. “I think Marc was trying to get closer to the two bikes in front of him, without wasting time”explained the reigning World Champion at a press conference. “He didn’t want to overtake, he just wanted to follow and the circumstances are that at turn 3, if you brake hard the drivers who are behind have to brake earlier… It’s a domino effect. I think it’s more bad luck than something voluntary. For me, it’s a bad coincidence.”
“Turn 3 is difficult”outbid Maverick Vinales. “I had a few scares [pendant la course sprint]. On the last lap, when I passed Jack [Miller] at this place I blocked the front. Luckily I was able to slow the bike down. I think double long lap is what the rules say. What to say… The fact is that turn 3 is difficult. It’s very easy to make mistakes.”
Marc Márquez’s damaged motorcycle
Marco Bezzecchi shared the opinion of the Aprilia rider, referring to a “error” de Márquez but a tricky context: “This bend is really a bastard [rires] because if you brake five meters later, you unbalance the bike and you don’t stop. It’s a shame when you have a collision in a group but it can happen in some races.”
Marc Márquez was naturally able to count on the unfailing support of Alberto Puig, his boss in the official Honda team, who believes that the #93 might hardly avoid the collision. “He had no intention of overtaking but he had a front wheel lockup”recalled the former pilot. “He released the brake and the bike went off like a rocket. He had the tire hard so maybe it wasn’t up to temperature, maybe it needed one more lap. That’s probably the he was not trying to overtake, he was not on the limit because he felt really good on the bike, he was really good during the lap and a half he did. pilots were together and there was nothing he might do to avoid the crash.”
“From Marc’s side, from the team, from Repsol Honda, we really want to say that we are sorry for this incident and we hope that Oliveira is well. No one is doing these things intentionally and we are sorry.”
Alex Marquez also came to defend his brother, finding the bikes increasingly difficult to manage in such phases of the races. “With these bikes, with the aerodynamics, it has to be said once more that small mistakes become big mistakes”explained the Catalan on Canal +. “You have to be very smart. You can very easily make mistakes. [Samedi] I had the same thing with Viñales, in [virage] 5. A lot of contact is caused by aerodynamics and riders need to be smart regarding dealing with this issue. But it’s something that can happen, it happened to me last year in Australia with Jack. Everyone is at the limit in the race.”
