Marquez Says “Damage Already Done” Despite Bagnaia Apology

Alex Marquez and Francesco Bagnaia clashed during last week’s Aragon MotoGP, leading to both riders crashing out of podium contention. Worse for Bagnaia, his non-score was met by title rival Jorge Martin picking up 20 valuable points with second.

Earlier in the week we gave you the full rundown of what transpired between the two Ducati riders and the ensuing reaction it created, from Marquez and Bagnaia included. The latter had some very strong views about the incident, but also Alex Marquez, and they were strong considering Bagnaia was arguably more at fault.

But in a surprising turnaround, Bagnaia had since apologised to Marquez, not for the incident itself, but the manner in which he vented after the race, saying: “First of all I want to say sorry to Alex (Marquez) for the strong words I said during the interviews after the race. I was very angry about what happened and looking at the telemetry was even worse from my point of view.

“I was a bit too strong with my words, I didn’t want to say that he made us crash on purpose but his defence was a bit aggressive, like it is normal when you are fighting for the podium positions.

“I still think the same about the incident because I have my way of thinking but for sure the words I said were a bit too much and I said sorry to Alex. Physically I am not at 100 per cent, I feel a lot of pain in my shoulder, over the collarbone by my neck. We will try to be ready; it is my home Grand Prix and it is always fantastic to race in front of the crowd here. I cover a million kilometres every year here so I can be ready in any case.”

Although Bagnaia is still not accepting any blame for causing the crash, the Italian admitted his anger led to him making the comments he did: “Sometimes anger can make you say something that you don’t think, so from my point of view it's that.

“He came to our office to say sorry and we are two riders with two points of view and are respectful, and for sure we had the same ambition at the wrong moment.”

In the immediate aftermath of the incident, Marquez received heavy backlash on social media, which was as a result of the very strong words used by Bagnaia when he blamed Marquez for staying at 60 per cent throttle before hitting him. What Bagnaia failed to realise was that Marquez was blindsided as he was looking in the direction of the corner which was not the direction Bagnaia came from.

Speaking ahead of this weekend’s Misano MotoGP, Marquez said: “I like the fact that he apologised, it's something which I am thankful to him for. It's true that the damage to myself, my team and also to my rider image has already been done. That being said, I want to close this chapter and want no one to speak about it.” 

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