Marc Márquez concluded his track preparation yesterday in Losail for his first MotoGP season with Gresini and riding a Ducati. The Spaniard set the fourth fastest time on the final day of testing, being 0.383s slower than the leader, Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati).
The six-time world champion in the premier class started by commenting to the press: ‘It’s no secret: throughout the preseason, I’ve been quite calm because I knew: step by step, without panic, simply… sometimes I was very far away, but trying to understand every step I take because it’s a new bike and it was important‘.
According to Márquez, on this last day of preseason, he took more risks, although he admits that at this point there are still stronger riders: ‘It was the day to take another step, to increase the risk, and that’s what we did. Especially in attacking the stopwatch, I was closer, in the long series I was attacking well – it’s true that there are no lap times because there was a problem with my transponder. I also had the first crash, but it’s normal because I increased the risk on the bike. Besides, I’m happy. There are still three/four/five riders faster than us – especially [Francesco] Bagnaia, [Jorge] Martín, [Enea] Bastianini are faster than us. But let’s see; I was closer than in Malaysia, so step by step we need to understand how to learn from them‘.
Solo en el Gran Premio de Qatar es que el #93 estará por primera vez compitiendo directamente con otras motos a bordo de su Ducati, y admitió que en esta etapa todavía hay mucho por aprender y será normal cometer errores: ‘Este es otro aspecto, será otra lección: entender cómo pilotar detrás de los demás, entender cómo adelantar. A veces todavía me olvido de desactivar el dispositivo [de ajuste de altura] porque funciona de manera diferente y en la serie larga cuando estaba pensando en cambiar los mapas me olvidé de desactivar el dispositivo. Todavía cometeré algunos errores en las carreras porque es parte del proceso. Pero necesito mantener la calma y simplemente seguir lo que hice en la pretemporada. Habrá carreras en las que sufriré mucho. Pero si es momento de sufrir, es momento de sufrir. Lo que quiero hacer es intentar disfrutar. Habrá días que serán más difíciles, pero veremos. Todavía hay muchas cosas por aprender’.
