While insisting he was more than satisfied with fourth on his Gresini Ducati MotoGP debut in Qatar, Marc Marquez also knew exactly which rider’s data he needed to learn from ahead of this weekend’s second round in Portimao.
The Spaniard crossed the Lusail line as the top GP23 rider, 3.429s behind factory Ducati’s reigning champion and race winner Francesco Bagnaia and 1.496s from Jorge Martin and the final place on the podium.
I had a go at the podium. I almost bridged the gap to Martin. But [anyway] it’s good this way,” Marquez said. “If at the Valencia test they’d told me I would have finished fourth today, I would have signed for it.
“This has never been one of my favourite circuits so fourth is a good result.
“We will analyse the data now: Bagnaia finished three seconds ahead of us and he’s the reigning champion. It’s from him we need to learn to further raise the bar.”
“But I keep going with my style, I want to be patient this year, I want to enjoy it again, I want to fight for the top 5 positions, and it’s what I did [in Qatar].
“Every day I improve my riding style, every day I change a few things that help a little bit, so still I believe that I haven’t arrived at the limit of the bike.”
Marquez took pole position and a Sprint podium as a Repsol Honda rider at Portimao last season, only to collide with Miguel Oliveira early in the grand prix, injuring them both.
