The eight-time world champion endured a torrid first half of the 2023 campaign, scoring just 15 points from eight rounds in which he missed races in five of them and crashed 14 times.
It plunged his continued future at Honda into doubt, though he said during the Silverstone weekend that his “intention” is to see out his current contract.
Altering his approach this weekend, Marquez was not pushing for results and was simply trying to build a better base set-up on his RC213V, which resulted in his lowly 14th in qualifying and 18th in the sprint.
Running as high as 10th before exiting the race in an “unlucky” tangle with Ducati’s Enea Bastianini, Marquez feels his approach has proven beneficial.
“Good, today I’m happy,” he said on Sunday. “I’m happy about the weekend because the target was try to rebuild a bit the confidence and try to find the base.
“I rebuilt the confidence, but to find the base, we need more races, more race tracks, different situations. But the weekend was solid, stable, also I controlled myself.
“The approach of the weekend was very different. I forget the times, forget everything.
“I was riding with my feeling. If I didn’t feel [good], like in the sprint race, I did not push.
“If I felt [good] like today, I pushed more. My target was try to do a weekend without crashes from overriding.
“Today’s crash was not for overriding. I was not riding over the limits of the bike. So, it’s the correct approach to build the base.”
Explaining his Maggotts crash with Bastianini on lap 15, Marquez says he was trying to avoid a collision having been caught out by some rainfall.
“I crashed in the race, but it was a very unlucky situation that can happen in racing,” he added.
“I broke the wing on the first lap, and this lost me a lot on acceleration and the way to stop the bike was very difficult.
“But then I say ‘ok, keep calm, I was riding in my rhythm, nothing more, the pace I had in the practice – 2m01s middle’.
“And then in one point it started to rain a bit, Bastianini overtook me because I didn’t want to take the risk in the rain.
“[Before] I would have taken the risk, but not today. We arrived at Turn 10/11, I saw that it was a bit more wet and I start to slid a bit.
“I went to the left side to save a crash, but Bastianini had a small moment and went to the left.
“So, then I didn’t have the time to avoid the situation. I think I had a small contact with him. Ok, we crashed but it’s not the kind of crash that I lose confidence.”
