The Spaniard – a six-time MotoGP World Champion with Honda – embarks on a fresh chapter with Ducati and the satellite Gresini Racing team for the 2024 MotoGP season, a debut in Qatar this weekend that will likely command the lion’s share of the media attention.
Marquez comes to Gresini Racing – where he is partnered with his brother Alex Marquez – and Ducati on the back of a debilitating period spanning four years from his serious arm injury at the start of the 2020 MotoGP season hindered by repeated physical issues and a general decline in form from the Japanese firm.
However, though Marquez’s shock decision to move to Ducati has been borne from a determination to prove his competitiveness in the current era of MotoGP – having largely dominated between 2013 and 2019 prior to his long injury lay-off in 2020 – he admits to being concerned that old habits will surface in the heat of battle in Lusail this weekend.
My instinct, my natural riding,” he said in response to a question about what his ‘biggest fear’ was on the eve of the new season.
“In a test you are calm and you can think about it, in a race weekend with the pressure, with the stress, my natural instinct is still to ride like the Honda. So I need to keep working, keep thinking through the weekend to ride what the bike wants, not what I want.”
