Marc Márquez left behind a challenging first day of MotoGP testing in Sepang, accumulating 72 laps this Wednesday. Despite posting only the 14th fastest time and not being satisfied with his quick laps, the Gresini rider feels he is progressing in adaptation.
The Spaniard said he was happy with the day, but admitted he continues to struggle with the time attack: ‘Today was much better than yesterday. Today I felt better, I was able to do more laps – even too much maybe, because 72 laps here in Malaysia maybe it’s too much; I don’t know how I will be tomorrow. But today I felt like this and even in the last part of the day, when I had a tyre for the time attack, I decided to do 10 laps – the Sprint race – because I felt it was necessary to myself to understand this bike with more laps in a row. And in fact during the Sprint race I was starting slower and then faster in the end. That means that I was understanding better the bike lap by lap. I’m still struggling a lot on the time attack – it’s where I’m struggling more because it’s the most difficult for the rider to understand how to use the new tyre. Because for the pace with the used tyre you have a lot of laps, you have like 15 laps. But for the time attack you have only two laps and after two hours you have another two laps for the time attack. So it’s there where I still need to understand how to use the tyre. Apart of that, I’m happy about how the day went’.
At this point, Márquez stated that although he is not yet in perfect harmony with the bike, he continues to adapt and needs more mileage: ‘I’m still a little stiff on the bike, but today I started to enjoy a bit and that was the main reason to make 10 laps in a row – to try to understand better. Because if you do a time attack it’s just two laps and you don’t understand a lot. At the moment I need laps, laps. Maybe today I did too much because tomorrow I will feel it, but OK’.
On the other hand, #93 explained that the rear tyre is used in a very different way in the case of the Ducati, and he still needs to get rid of the instinct of riding as if it were his old bike: ‘It’s completely different the way to use the rear tyre. For that reason I’m still riding Ducati like Honda. In Valencia it was OK, but not here. And now I need to take out the habit of 11 years with one bike. This is difficult. Especially when you are in rhythm it’s easier because you have more time, but when you are on the time attack you are not thinking – you are going by instinct. And if I’m riding by instinct, I’m riding like Honda. But it’s not the best way to ride this bike. So, step by step, it’s a process’.
Regarding the settings he is using on his Ducati Desmosedici GP23, Márquez stated: ‘I was using a very standard setting from the other Ducati riders because I don’t want to lose the way; I don’t want to go to another setup. Because that was the setup with which I started yesterday and today was working better, what means I’m understanding better the bike. And it’s there where I still need to understand and how I’m riding. We are trying a few things. My technicians are also trying to understand my riding style. We did some big changes on the bike today – some positives, some negatives. But in the end we are riding with a very standard setup’.