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Marc Marquez's first day of testing in Qatar ended with a 16th place, more than nine tenths from Francesco Bagnaia's benchmark. A disappointing result at first sight, but not for the Gresini team rider, who continued to improve his feeling with the Ducati Desmosedici GP23 in the 58 laps completed on the Lusail track.
“I mean here from the beginning I feel more free on the bike, with more confidence, playing more with the body and that was already an improvement. It’s true that still I will arrive at circuits, riding one type of bike for 11 years, my instinct is that one. But step by step I need to change. I worked on myself during all the day and now in the last part of the day we started to work on the set-up - observed Marc, speaking of the work carried out on this Monday test - But first of all I was just working on my performance, on my riding style and I started to feel better and better. So, let’s see if tomorrow we can make another step.”
As he has reiterated several times over the winter, the eight-time world champion is aware of what the expectations are for him in 2024, but he has no intention of rushing.
“I understand the expectations of the fans and that they believe in me, but another point of view is the reality. I’m coming from four years super difficult where I need to get the confidence again. If you see the pre-season I just tried to take it in a good way, calm and try to understand the bike. Why? Because it takes time – reiterated the Spanish rider - I’m human. And the years are passing and the young riders are coming, they are faster and this is natural. Every athlete has his moment and then step by step you need to understand how to adapt to the situation. Of course it will be a difficult season, there are two, three guys in Ducati who are riding in a very good way. I try to learn from them, but it takes time and it’s difficult. Let’s see if I can step by step get closer to them, but it’s not my target. If my target was to win, it will be a big frustration.”
Things change, as does the development of MotoGP bikes, which over the last few years have become increasingly faster, more technological and sophisticated vehicles due to aerodynamics. A trend that the thirty-year-old hopes will be reversed as soon as possible by limiting the use of aerodynamic appendages, to slow down the bikes and make the championship more competitive.
“In my opinion, the first thing to do for the future of MotoGP is to reduce the aerodynamics. This would slow down the bikes, also because now we use a lot of torque, we don't have wheelies, we brake very late and we can't help but maintain the line because we can't fight against the bike and this makes it more difficult to overtake - said Marquez - This is the first aspect to work on and then if the bikes are slower the show will improve, also because the spectators who watch the races on TV don't even realise if you are riding at 360 or 340 km/h. There is a need to work on the regulations because there is more and more aerodynamics and we have also seen this year that the bikes resemble F1 cars: they even have rear wings, in addition to the front ones, to generate more aerodynamic load in corners".
