Suppo: Marquez crazy not to beat Jorge

Repsol Honda team principal, Livio Suppo, comments on how Marquez should deal with the situation.

Go on holiday and relax. I think there’s nothing really we can add, especially Marc. If people believe him we are happy, if they don’t I think ‘time is a gentleman’ [an Italian phrase that can mean ‘time is a healer’ or ‘the truth will come out’]. I’m just so sad for what happened on Sunday [at Valencia] because I know that Marc really wanted to win this race. And when I saw him in parc ferme, I’ve never seen him so disappointed. Because he is a clever guy – you must be stupid to do deliberately what happened on Sunday…If you think seriously, with no pressure, you understand that it is crazy for Marc not trying to beat Jorge. Even if Marc finished in front of Jorge with Dani in third, Jorge was still world champion with the same points [as Rossi]. That would probably be even better, because this championship was deserved by both of them [Rossi and Lorenzo] and it would then have been decided only by different race wins.

He also says he has a lot of respect for Rossi.

I met Valentino coming back from Indy I think, in the lounge at the airport, and I said honestly I have more respect now than I have 10 years ago. Because what he’s done this season – it doesn’t matter if he won the championship or not – has been unbelievable; 36 years old, coming from the 500 and still able to fight with the young guns that are riding in a totally different way. And this year to beat almost all of them and lose the championship by only five points has been really unbelievable. Of course we cannot be happy with the situation that has been created by the words of Valentino, starting from the Sepang press conference. I really hope Valentino will understand that Honda and Marc are not against him. We just try to do our championship and if he thinks differently I’m very sorry, but it’s not like that.