After the two practice sessions on Friday MotoGP Jerez 2024, Marc Marquez confidently stated that his transition and adaptation period to the Ducati Desmosedici was over. It is indeed difficult to get rid of the Honda racing style that has inspired Marc for the last 11 years, but he is very confident that he will be able to carry out the next evolution of the racing style so that it can be more integrated with the Desmosedici.
“This is one of the Fridays that I think is the most comfortable. This is the Friday I find most comfortable. Evolutionary results; set-up is getting more precise. The Ducati is the most complete bike, and that’s what you look for in a championship. I’ve completely adapted to the Ducati, now I need to find that secret to finish it. “
And when Marc was pressed by journalists about whether he wanted to continue his future with Ducati, Marc answered firmly “Yes, that’s clear.” Furthermore, Marc was also asked for his opinion regarding his potential to enter the Pramac Team next year. Marc’s answer: “This is a great team, they have an official bike and have shown that they are capable of fighting for the World Championship, but this is not a factory team.” The syllogism is that Marc is currently eyeing one remaining position on the Ducati Lenovo Manufacturing team.
In the Media Debrief, Marc also explained the problem with his front brakes in Austin and updated the changes he brought in Jerez regarding this issue “I changed the brake lever and then we also changed something in the specifications in the brakes because the team worked very hard with Ducati to understand what happened in Austin because the problem was so big with the data. Basically, I went back to the levers I’ve used my entire career.
“I mean, I started using another lever last year because I was having arm-pump problems. And then things got a little better. That’s not a solution because with that lever you only feel the problem is reduced but the problem is still there. Here in this circuit, it doesn’t matter because the temperature isn’t too warm. So, we need to wait to get to a warm track. “
Marc Marquez really looked like he was starting to appear strong in the first free practice session last Friday, taking second place with a time of 1:37.137, only surpassed by his younger brother, Alex, by half a second. In the afternoon, in Practice, he also had no problems securing a top-10 position to go straight to Q2, with a time of 1:36.138 which put him in third place, just a tenth of a second behind Bagnaia.
“The good thing is that we can stop talking about adaptation. The adaptation is complete. So, now it’s time to work on the small details. My adaptation to the motorbike, I feel like I’m already in it motorcycle. As I showed today in FP1, I went out and just boom!!
” My riding style was made for Honda and then I tried to adapt. The adaptation to the bike is already there and now we are starting to bring the bike to my riding style too. And this is something that really helped me. That’s the reason why I started to get faster and more consistent. You can adapt some things but it is impossible to change your riding style in the last 10 years.”
However, Marc feels that he still has homework to be able to conquer sectors that have a combination of fast corners, such as the fourth sector or the final sector of Jerez, where there are several fast corners that end with Jorge Lorenzo’s T13 hairpin bend, which brought a lot of drama in previous years. ” The last sector is not one of my strong points, just like the second sector. We are currently in the top four, let’s see how we all develop.”
