Marquez Seeks Improvement on Ducati MotoGP Bike

Eight-time MotoGP world champion Marc Marquez is keen to improve his performance at Gresini Racing, especially after pre-season testing in Qatar. Despite finishing fourth, less than four tenths behind leader Francesco Bagnaia, Marquez insisted that the last three tenths are the toughest in the world of racing.

The Spaniard’s first failure was discovering the limits of Gresini’s Ducati GP23, which led to a crash. However, Marquez sees the crash as part of the process of learning the new bike’s limits, especially when the last tenth of a second goes down where the gap is most important.

“It’s true that when I fell, I realized I was stretching, I was going too fast, but I wanted to find out where the limits of this bike are,” said Marquez. He added that he was satisfied with the progress so far, but admitted that he was a few tenths behind leaders such as Jorge Martin, Francesco Bagnaia and Enea Bastianini.

During the pre-season, Marquez was calm and knew that adjusting to the new bike would require careful steps. He stressed the importance of understanding each stage and is now determined to close the gap between the fastest riders.

“The whole pre-season I was very calm because I know the steps without panicking. Sometimes I was a little off, but I tried to understand each step because it’s a new bike and that’s important.” Marquez said.

The Spanish driver is optimistic, although he admits there are faster drivers out there. He highlighted the need to learn from the fastest drivers such as Martin, Bagnai and Bastianini and noted the progress during testing.

“Today was the day to take another step, to increase the risk and I did it there, especially on the fast lap where I was closest. I was very good for a long time. Still three, four, five drivers. Faster than us, especially Martin, Bagnaia, Bastianini, but let’s see. I was closer than Malaysia today, so we have to understand step by step how we can learn from them.”

In short, Marquez is aware of the challenges and learnings during the pre-season, committed to improving his performance at Ducati Gresini. Step by step he tries to catch up with the front runners and aims for a competitive and exciting MotoGP season.