This season, Marc Márquez is riding a Ducati Desmosedici GP23, so he doesn’t have the latest bike and has to compete against riders with the GP24. At the MotoGP British GP, the Gresini rider finished fourth, behind three rivals with the current year’s model.
When asked if the differences between this year’s and last year’s Ducati bikes vary depending on the tire compound used, the Spaniard disagreed:
– For me, it’s not related with the rear tyre; it’s related with the evolution of the bikes. If you see last year on this track, my brother Álex and Fabio Di Giannantonio – he started from the back – but they were the fastest guys on track and Aleix [Espargaró] won with Aprilia. And in this race I finished ahead of Aleix’s Aprilia, I finished ahead of Di Gia and I finished ahead of my brother Álex.
Márquez believes that performance varies depending on the track, but with proper work, it’s possible to challenge the riders with the latest Ducati version: ‘In the end the performance is there, but it looks like that the 2024 bikes are super fast on some tracks and especially on this one where you have long straights, with the rear device, with more top speed, the difference is a bit bigger. But as we showed today, if we work in a good way, we can be in a good level to fight with them – but always on the limit’.