But you’d still be hard-pressed to find many who think he’ll actually struggle. Brother and Gresini Ducati team-mate Alex Marquez described him as being already “too close”. Jorge Martin said: “He’s where I expected. He will be really close and ready maybe for the victory in Qatar.”
Of course, those words must be taken with a grain of salt. After all, it’s not like even the outspoken Martin would go out there and say, ‘nah, you know what, Marc’s not cutting it, the only way he’ll see the podium in Qatar is through binoculars’.
But also, nobody will say that because, even if Marquez’s Sepang test wasn’t perfect, it does not seem accurate at all to suggest he struggled.
Despite the travails of the opening day, which he made up for with a mammoth effort on day two, Marquez logged a total of 174 laps across the test – the fourth-most, just 15 fewer than biggest workhorse Jack Miller (KTM).
That mileage took a toll on a rider who is not only now one of MotoGP’s elder statesmen (despite being just 30, like this writer!) but also has had a famously woeful run of injuries in recent years. Marquez looked frankly ‘gassed’ by the end of the ordeal.
