Honda rider Marquez had set a lap good enough to make the top 10 in Friday afternoon’s second practice session and thus secure a guaranteed spot in the second part of qualifying, but this was scrubbed for a yellow flag violation.
The lap would have been good enough to get him into Q2, but the six-time MotoGP champion pushed for a further improvement and instead ended up in the gravel at Turn 1.
With his best lap taken away, Marquez was left 14th-fastest, two spots behind team-mate Joan Mir, and facing the prospect of fighting his way out of the first part of qualifying on Saturday.
But the six-time champion admits that he didn't realise that in reality he didn't need to push any harder to get through to Q2.
“It was a good day, but unlucky,” summarised Marquez. “Some days I go into Q2 without [having] the speed, but today I had the speed and I was not able to be in Q2.
“With the first tyre, I did a mistake on the first corner and I missed the lap. I touched the green [tarmac] also, but I lost a lot of tenths there.
"With the second tyre I missed the lap for a yellow flag [caused by a crash for Raul Fernandez]. Then on the last lap it was a misunderstanding for me, because I never saw that yellow flag.
“I thought that my time was a 1m44.0s, and then I arrived on the last lap thinking I had to improve on 1m44.0s, and to improve on that is to ride on the extra-limit.
Source: Autosport