Takaa🍃ki Nakagami may have finished a distant 17th at Sunday's COTA MotoGP, but the LCR Honda rider is sure a debut podium slipped away when he fell on the second lap.

Nakagami crossed the line 35-seconds behind race winner Marc Marquez, but lost 32 of those seconds when he dropped his RCV on the Turn 12 bumps. His best lap, on 14 of 20, was also quickerᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚꦗᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ than everyone but Marquez.

The Japanese admits his pace might h⛎ave been slightly slower had he been battlinꦡg with riders at the front. But even so, third place Francesco Bagnaia was 8.5s behind Marquez at the chequered flag, leaving Nakagami to rue what might have been.

"After the start I felt quite good and I was ready to attack. I saw that Marc tried to go away and from the very b🔜eginning of the rac🐷e I had good confidence on braking so I tried to overtake," said Nakagami, who finished the first lap in sixth place.

"In Turn 12, I was just a few k faster than normal, but the problem was when I hit the bumps at the apex, which is maximum lea🦋n angle, unfortunately I lost the front.

"That's it. I mean it was, maybe I have to say, a stupid mistake and the cost of that small mistake was massive. During the race, of course I was alone, but the 𒈔pace was really good.

"I thinꦫk today was easy to get the podium, easy to say but the pace – only Marc did a quite good pace a🅰ll the race but from Fabio and Bagnaia it was not really fantastic. So it's a shame I lost another opportunity. I'm really sad about the crash and losing the podium."

Nakagami, who has finished a career-best fourth three-times since the start of 2020, saw other podium&n༺bsp;chances slip away with accidents at Aragon and Valencia last season.

Marqu𓃲ez's team-mate Pol Esꦍpargaro went on to finish as the next best Honda rider, in tenth place and 20-seconds from the #93.

Nakagami's team-mate Alex Marquez was twelfth.