Marc Marquez concedes he’s lacking physical ‘power’ after finishing seventh at Italian Grand Prix

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Marc Marquez was happy with his seventh-place finish at the Italian Grand Prix, but he admitted that he was struggling a lot with changing direction and physical power during the race.

It was an encouraging weekend for the Spaniard at Mugello, qualifying fourth and finishing fifth in the Sprint on Saturday. He enjoyed a strong battle with Pedro Acosta for P4, but eventually fell back to seventh.

The Italian Grand Prix was a huge test of Marquez’s physical condition, having returned to the grid following his accident at Le Mans. While the Ducati rider was happy to make it out of the weekend injury-free, his struggles were clear to see.

Marc Marquez admits he was lacking physical ‘power’ and struggling to change direction at Mugello

Marquez could not even ‘write’ due to his injuries, highlighting the scale he had to climb to perform at Mugello. It was a ‘super demanding’ weekend, by his own admission, as he found himself struggling to change direction.

He told TNT Sports after the race: “Yeah, super happy with my weekend, because I showed in very short moments the speed. The long-race distance, I know that I would suffer more, but most of the race I was fighting for fourth place.

“So yeah, 10 laps to go, more or less, I started to struggle a lot. I was fighting there until the end, but they were faster than me. But [I’m] happy, because the starting point of my rehabilitation on the bike was good, and let’s see [if at] the next races we can improve.”

Asked what his weakness was this weekend, he replied: “I mean, it’s true that we are in one of the worst tracks, speaking about physical condition, because it’s super demanding.

“So yeah, it’s true that I was struggling a lot in the right corners. Is it my worst point? Normally, but yeah, in the last part of the race, I started to struggle even more with the changing directions.

“And on the left corners, in the beginning, I was fast, but in the end, we didn’t have enough power. Now we need to rebuild the muscles.”

Neil Hodgson saw Marquez had lost muscle since his last MotoGP appearance. With the Hungarian Grand Prix coming up, he will have little time to build his strength up.