Starting from ninth on the grid, Marc Márquez didn’t have an easy Sprint race in the MotoGP Japanese GP. However, he gradually recovered positions and finished third. Now, he faces the main race, with the weather expected to be considerably better.
The Gresini rider emphasized that, more than the conditions, the outcome of his race will heavily depend on his performance in the first two laps:
– Today the conditions were dry – there were some drops, but in the end we did the lap record of the track, and the pace in the Sprint was super fast. It looks like for tomorrow the track conditions will be even better. So, my result will depend a lot on the first or second lap. As we’ve seen in Mandalika with [Francesco] Bagnaia, today with [Jorge] Martín, when you start from the back with the slipstream of the other bikes, with the tyre temperatures, everything becomes more and more difficult. And I’ve been suffering all season, because the qualifying is the weak point, but it’s there, and for that reason I want to improve. And tomorrow we need to be patient in the first laps, and then understand which kind of race we can do.
Márquez is also concerned about the rear tire and the choice he needs to make: ‘The rear tyre will be a big question mark, nobody knows. So, today the soft tyre started to drop, it started to spin quite a lot. But let’s see what we can do’.