After a decade with Repsol Honda, Marc Márquez will be with an independent European team for the first time in his MotoGP career this year. The differences are many and at various levels.
The six-time premier class champion explained that more than the culture itself, the biggest distinction is between being a factory team and a satellite team, considering the work requirements:
– More than Italian and Japanese, it’s factory and no factory. In a factory team you have many things to try and you need to understand the way to ride, you need to be really focused because you need to be very precise in the comments because will be the development of the bike. Right now I’m just in another situation: I focus more on how to learn to ride this bike. Of course with the technicians and mechanics the information is still not flowing in the same way because with the other team I worked for 12 years. But of course Honda is Honda, is HRC, and a massive respect for them.
Regarding culture, Márquez doesn’t deny that it’s very different, but he believes there are similarities in the way work needs to be done: ‘It’s the Japanese culture and a factory team, and it’s a private team, a familiar team and the Italian cultura. So it’s completely different, but in the end the way to work, the way to be precise and to plan the test, if you want to fight for the top is one way and it’s like try to have everything on the best way’.