Marquez, a good sport with Quartararo: "We are in France, he deserves it!"

It is rare, very rare, that Marc Márquez breaks away from his flawless white smile. The six-time world champion MotoGP knows perfectly well how to pretend to be happy, even when he is beaten and his ego is pricked. But at Le Mans, there did not seem to be any artifice behind the satisfaction displayed by the n°93, despite being beaten in qualifying by fabio quartararo.

“We all know Fabio’s talent, we know he’s super fast. We’re in France, so he deserves it! It was great to see the crowd start singing La Marseillaise.” boasts Márquez, who would have taken pole position without a final epic lap from the Nice driver. Second on the grid, the Catalan placed himself in an ideal position to claim victory in both races, despite having lost a second consecutive pole position to Fabio Quartararo.

"Besides, I can't say I made a mistake, I did a clean lap, but he was just faster than me. Congratulations to him. From now on, we will try to fight with him during the two races of the weekend.", continues Márquez, who was wary of the 2021 world champion, whom he admits to having imagined capable of producing this kind of performance at the end of the session.

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Marquez does not want to be seen as the favorite

“After the first stint, I stopped in the pits, we were talking with my team, and we already thought that, on the second tire, Fabio was going to be faster than my time.”, reveals Márquez in the closed park to the microphone of Canal+. "But in the end, all the riders were very fast. I beat the track record I set yesterday, but Fabio did even better. I'm very happy with my pace and my qualifying, and we'll see what we do in the race."

Pointed out by his brother Alex, 3rd on the grid, as the big favorite for victory despite Fabio Quartararo's pole, Marc Márquez wants to remove this favorite label from his forehead before the sixth round of the season. "I'm not unbeatable, everyone will be very close. I had the same pace as yesterday, but the others have taken a step forward, so we'll have to be careful.", is wary of the official Ducati rider, who has once again taken the upper hand over his double world champion teammate, Francesco Bagnaia.

The Italian will only start 6th, behind the Gresini of rookie Fermín Aldeguer and the KTM of Maverick Viñales (Tech3).