A podium was within reach for Marc Marquez at the Thai MotoGP before he was forced to retire, but the Spaniard insists there is “no panic” at Ducati.

Marquez started second, but dropped to fifth early on as Raul Fernandez, then Jorge Martin, then Pedro Acosta came through. He recovered position on Martin, and looked set to at least gain another from a fading-late Fernandez before retiring with a broken wheel rim and puncture.

The reigning MotoGP champion said afterwards that the early lack of pace was about managing the tyres to have grip remaining at the end of the race, when lap times dropped by three seconds among the leaders compared to their best laps of the race.

“I was super-calm in the beginning,” Marquez told TNT Sports after the race.

“I knew that it will be a long race for the tyres, for my physical condition. I said ‘Okay, I want to be calm, doesn’t matter if they overtook me’. 

“When remained 10 laps is when I decided to attack. In fact, I was arriving, I think I was close to the podium, or every lap I was closer to the podium with catching Raul [Fernandez] and Pedro [Acosta]. 

“But, okay. Today we scored zero points but the most important is that the level is there.”

With Marquez’s retirement, the best Ducati rider in Thailand was Fabio Di Giannantonio in sixth, behind all four Aprilias and the KTM of Pedro Acosta.

It was the first race since the 2021 British Grand Prix that did not feature a Ducati in the top-three, but Marquez is not expecting this to be the trend of the season, necessarily, noting that Thailand is one of the circuits where Michelin uses its harder heat-resistant rear tyre construction – although this will also be present in Brazil, as reported by Italian publication GPOne.

“Of course Ducati is working,” Marquez said. “We need to work well, we need to work hard, but no panic. 

“Here is a different [tyre] casing, a different tyre. Let’s see the next races. Of course, we need to work and we cannot sleep.”

Marquez retired from the race when he ran over the outside kerb at turn four and broke his rear wheel rim, causing the tyre to deflate.

This was the reason given by Davide Tardozzi when speaking post-race, and Marquez added that he had been unlucky to suffer such damage when it was a kerb many riders had hopped across during not only the race weekend but also the two-day test the week before.

“I think that just the kerb was the reason, but it’s true that many riders – even in the test – jumped that kerb and nothing happened,” he said.

“But today just I had a small moment in turn four, on that corner, and I decided to go wide and come back. 

“I said ‘Okay, I just want to save a risky moment’. But just when I jumped the kerb the rear tyre exploded. 

“Very strange, very unlucky I would say because I was doing a race [that was] super-calm, you saw that I was managing well. But it’s like this. 

“We need to think about the next race."

Marquez was clarified that he didn’t think the incident was indicative of a problem either with the track or with Michelin.

“It’s not a problem of Michelin and it’s not a problem of the track, it’s just those double kerbs are good for some reasons but today we see something unusual,” he explained.

“But it happened, the thing is that it’s super-strange because even the rim was completely damaged, [it] even exploded the rim. I feel very lucky that there was not a massive high-side.”