Marc Marquez: “Ducati adaptation is over… I'm dancing with the top group”
Marc Marquez: "The adaptation process with the Ducati is over"
Jerez was a track of two halves for Marc Marquez during Friday practice for the Spanish MotoGP.
The Gresini rider was second quickest to Brad Binder in Sector 1 and fastest of all in Sector 3, yet only 17th in Sector 2 and 12th in Sector 4.
The Spaniard felt the afternoon wind was a factor. But - despite those obvious areas of improvement - Marquez was still under Francesco Bagnaia’s lap record heading into the final sector and finished a close third on the timesheets.
“We’re losing a bit at turn five and in the final sector but one thing is for sure: the adaptation process with the Ducati machine is over, now it is time to do some fine-tuning to race with the best,” declared Marquez, who used his Austin set-up to dominate opening practice before team-mate and younger brother Alex put new rubber in the final minutes.
“The evolution is already done,” the #93 told the official MotoGP website. “As we showed in FP1, I felt good immediately with the bike.
“The most important thing is that on the race pace, we were there. On the time attack, also we were there in the top three.
“So tomorrow, the important thing is to try to be in the top six positions in qualifying to have some chance in the Sprint and main race.”
Returning to the scene of his career-changing 2020 accident, Marquez, who is targeting his first Sunday podium on a Ducati, added:
“This year I'm enjoying [again]. I'm dancing with the top group. And let's see if we can keep going like this.
“Of course, to win we still need to have some evolutions to my riding style. But to be up there in the top five, which is the target, we are there.”
Marquez's words could also be seen as a further message to Ducati that he is ready for full factory machinery in 2025, an aim he stated publicly on Thursday.
After his perfect start to the weekend, Alex Marquez was one of nine riders to fall in the afternoon but salvaged the final top ten place for direct Qualifying 2 access.
“Too bad for the afternoon crash and especially for the traffic encountered during the time attack, otherwise we would have been much higher in the practice timesheets,” Alex said. “[But] we needed to recover the feeling and the confidence, and we did it.
“To be racing in front of the home crowd obviously helps in being fast straight away from the morning. We need to be as close as we can to the front of the grid because it’s not easy to overtake here, so our full focus is now on tomorrow’s qualifying.”
