Between last Thursday and Saturday, Sepang hosted the MotoGP shakedown, mainly intended for test riders. Several manufacturers introduced many innovations in their bikes, including new aerodynamic devices – a trend that has been increasingly followed, but one Marc Márquez does not appreciate.
Asked about his impressions of the Sepang shakedown, the Spanish rider commented specifically on aerodynamics: ‘I saw some photos from the shakedown, some new aerodynamics – looks like Formula 1! I hate that way, but it’s the way we’re going. The rules allow it, so they will go there. But when I see that everytime we have more and more aerodynamics, personally speaking I don’t like. But, OK, you need to adapt. Apart of that I saw that the lap times were pretty fast to the first two days. It will be interesting to see how we’ll finish these three days’.
For Márquez, it would be preferable to focus development in areas other than aerodynamics, recalling the negative impact aerodynamics can have on the show: ‘It is a compromise, but when you have the aerodynamics then will be more difficult to follow the bikes and to overtake. This is what happens to Formula 1. But in MotoGP the good thing is we are able to fight in a big group. But now if you are going more, more and more on the aerodynamics, I would prefer to develop on the chassis area, tyres, engine, rather than the aerodynamics because it will affect the show that is the main race. For the show it doesn’t matter if you are 0.3s faster or 0.3s slower. People want to see overtakes and fighting’.
