Two minutes before the warm-up lap for the United States Motorcycle Grand Prix was to begin, Marquez sprinted from the grid to his spare bike.
He was followed by nine more riders who chose to ditch their bikes with grooved tyres for their spares with slick tyres.
In the days after the Circuit of the Americas race, MotoGP published fascinating footage of Marquez speaking with Marco Rigamonti, his engineer.
“If I go there, and I exit from pit lane, I start from last, right? On the grid without a long lap penalty,” said Marquez.
Rigamonti replied, “Yeah, you start last.“
Further conversations seemed to suggest that the team believed it would either start from the back of the grid or from the pit lane and escape a ride-through penalty.
Even Francesco Bagnaia’s team members on the other side of the Ducati garage believed Marquez would get away without a ride-through penalty.
Only Davide Tardozzi, Ducati team manager, seemed to know of the risk of a ride-through penalty, but Marquez and Rigamonti thought otherwise.
Behind-the-scenes look at Marc Marquez’s grid strategy 🎥 #MotoGP | #AmericasGP pic.twitter.com/tY5K7SepTF
— TNT Sports Bikes (@bikesontnt) March 31, 2025
MotoGP race director Mike Webb revealed post-race that the riders who changed bikes would have all received ride-through penalties if not for the sheer chaos that resulted in an aborted start.
“We had a similar situation in Argentina in 2018. Together, we rewrote the rules to make sure that anyone who changes the type of tyres on the bike in changing weather conditions by leaving the grid gets a penalty,” said Webb.
“If there wasn’t the chaos that caused me to do a new start procedure, if we had been able to continue with that, the riders who went and got the spare bike in pit lane with different tyres on would have served a ride-through penalty in the race.
“It sounds like the Marquez team were not expecting a ride-through; they were perhaps just expecting to start from pit lane or from the back of the grid.
“The rule is that changing tyres in that way, you take your original grid position after the warm-up and you serve a ride-through during the race. So they’re risking a ride-through.
“In the way it occurred with so many bikes in such confusion to get bikes and people on and off the grid, I called a new start and they were very lucky to get away with that.”
Looking back at this moment 👀 @marcmarquez93 wasn’t sat on the bike and decided to bolt back to the pits #AmericasGP 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/1SxFj03R5u
— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) March 30, 2025
Speaking post-race, Marquez said he knew the rules and that he expected more riders to join him and making the last-minute bike switch.
Marquez failed to finish the race after he crashed out of the lead, which handed victory to Ducati teammate Francesco Bagnaia.
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