Marc Márquez moved to Gresini in MotoGP this year after a decade with Repsol Honda. For the first time, he rides a bike from another manufacturer – in this case, Ducati – and Randy Mamola commented on this change by the six-time premier class champion.
The former rider told Motosan.es: ‘Now Marc already knows what everyone feels with the Ducati and knows what he feels with the Honda, but we also saw that Luca Marini rode quite well in the Valencia test, that bike looked very different again with the wings and I would assume it was the same engine. But Honda remains Honda, they will work hard there and will probably give more and more power in the test to have a character test to understand how Ducatis work’.
Mamola believes that Márquez will be in the fight for the top positions in the championship but doesn’t rate him as favorably as the top two from last year – Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) and Jorge Martín (Prima Pramac/Ducati): ‘The first ones are Pecco and Martín. The question marks are on the third rider because there are many riders capable of winning. I think, with Marc’s experience, he would be third for me’.
After the first two rounds, Márquez already has a podium in the Sprint race, occupying the sixth position in the championship. The 16th place in the Portuguese GP, after an incident with Bagnaia fighting for the top five, delayed the Spaniard, so the current classification does not reflect the performance he is having in this initial phase of the season.