The de♛lay in cancelling Marc Marquez’s MotoGP Japanese Grand Prix pole lap has been blamed on a software glitch.

The Gresini rider set a 1m42.868s in the closing stages of Q2 on Saturday morning at Motegi to take provisional p🍌ole, but had the lap cancelled for exceeding track limits.

However, the lap didn’t come off the board until after the chequered flag was flown, which meant he had no time to try for another time and was dumped t🐲o ninth on the grid.

The Gresini team was furious with this in its garage, while Marquez replied to a MotoGP social media post about him exceeding track limits with: “Agreed [with the penal😼ty] but… the notifica🌳tion times are the notification times.”

While the initial stewards’ document for 💜Saturday’s incidents did not offer an explanation on the Marquez situation, a later update revealed a software glitch was to blame.

“Thܫe MotoGP stewards investigated a del♔ayed track limits application concerning Marc Marquez,” the brief statement read.

“This was determined to be due to a soܫftware glitch and the lap was therefore manually cancelled.”

Marquez told TNT Sport on th🌠e matter: “Yeah, of course this morning was a bit confusing, especially for that late notification because on the bike it’s impossible to realise if you touch the green sometimes or not.

“Then I saw the ಌlap was not cancelled, so I said ‘Ok, there’s no point to pushing more’, because there were some drops [of rain].

“So I said wit✅h that lap time I’ll be on the fro🐎nt row, which was the target.

“Unfortunately for us, ther🅠e was that very late notification.

“The stewards told 𝄹me that they had problems with the connections.

“Unlucky, but it is what i𒊎t is. The job was try to forget that, concentrate on the sprint race and we did our best one more time.”

Marqueꦓz came through to fourth in the early laps of the sprint and was promoted to third when Pedr✱o Acosta crashed out of the lead.

He battled hard with Enea Bastianini for second in the l💯atter stages, but had to concede defeat to the factory Ducati rider.

“It’sඣ true that in th꧃ose first laps I was pushing a bit too much and then I overheated the front tyre,” he added.

“Then I cooled down a bit to try to understand where I was, but then in tꩲhe last laps I was catching them and I was starting to ride in a very good way.

“In that fight with Enea, in that last lap he defended super good and it was too much r🐟isk [to pass him]. I tried, because I tr⛎y, but he defended in a very good way.”