Marc Marquez finished Friday at Motegi in second place, but mainly talked about ‘many small problems’ with the bike and a lack of direction
Even though Marc Marquez finished Friday’s MotoGP practice session at Motegi in second place, just behind leader Brad Binder, the Gresini-Ducati rider was far from satisfied with the performance of his GP23.
“Our actual time is a fourth place. I’m second, but I’m not happy because we had a lot of problems and didn’t understand anything,” the Spaniard said after Friday’s practice for the Japanese Grand Prix, when the basic set-up of the bike was the same as in Indonesia.
There, Marquez was fighting for a podium just under a week ago when the engine of his Ducati broke down in the middle of the race, forcing him to retire.
Small problems spoil training
Now there were difficulties again. “We had a very strange training session in the afternoon with many small problems that prevented us from working normally,” says Marquez. When asked about it, however, he is reluctant to comment.
“We had a problem with the brake, and I won’t mention the others. But they occurred on both bikes.” One of them was stationary for a long time and covered with privacy screens – a rather unusual situation during a training session.
To make matters worse, the riders were only able to complete a few laps in the first free practice due to the weather conditions. A situation that – coupled with the problems on the bike – also led to tension and frustration for Marquez himself, as could be seen in his conversation with his crew.
Marquez misses clear direction
“It was a super important session because tomorrow the track is going to be wet. And I don’t like being in Q1 in the wet, so it was very intense,“ he explains.
”We did everything we could to solve the problems. In the end, I was only able to do the last two runs with my normal bike, but it was enough for Q2.” Looking ahead to the weekend, however, Marquez still feels a little lost.
“We didn’t understand anything about the tires. Although I was fast in the time attack, we still have to find consistency,” warns the Gresini rider, adding, “If you tell me now that I have to race on Sunday, I wouldn’t know which direction to take right now.”
Always fast in Japan with Honda
On Friday, he was still able to take the position of the direct pursuer. In the end, Marquez was only 33 thousandths of a second behind KTM’s Binder. However, the field was very close overall. The top 6 were separated by less than three tenths.
Marquez has already celebrated some successes with Honda at the Japanese Grand Prix in the past. He won the race in 2016, 2018 and 2019. Last year he came in third.
“I’ve always felt really good with Honda here with these stop-and-go corners. But that’s also one of the strengths of the Ducati. It’s true that the agility is different. You have to do the lap time in a different way,” he says. ‘But all Ducatis are in Q2, so the bike is working very well.’