Marc Marquez “not only a fast rider”, says Ducati as MotoGP title nears

Marc Marquez has again been praised for his intelligence after taking second at the Qatar MotoGP.

Marquez had a chance to win the title in Qatar, but needed Marco Bezzecchi and Jorge Martin to finish low enough for it to happen – it wasn’t in his control.

With the pace shown by Bezzecchi in practice, it was him who went into the races as the favourite, but in the end it was Marquez who scored the most points, largely thanks to a miscalculated overtake attempt by Bezzecchi in the Sprint which saw him score no points while Marquez took 12 for the half-distance win.

Second on Sunday was Marquez’s first podium finish outside of first place of the season, but it moved him closer still to an eighth MotoGP title.

For Ducati Lenovo Team manager Davide Tardozzi, the performance of Marc Marquez across the weekend was about not only his ability on the bike, but also his intelligence, something the Italian ex-rider also praised after Marquez won in Malaysia a week before.

“We came here in Qatar knowing our opponents could be very strong here, but in the end Marc [Marquez] was the rider that scored more points than everybody else,” said Tardozzi after the race in Qatar, speaking to MotoGP.com.

“It’s something that makes us really proud about our rider and our bike. 

“Honestly, in this moment, I think Marc is ‘over the top’ because he’s not only a fast rider, he’s a clever one.”

Tardozzi went on to praise Marquez’s strategy in the race, in which he let Bezzecchi go to try to maximise his own chances – taking second in the end was an over-achievement for Tardozzi.

“We knew that Bezzecchi was going to be really fast and Marc took the right strategy: he didn’t push in the beginning to be in his draft, and in the end he was right because he had more tyre than Raul [Fernandez, who also said he was managing fuel] that was trying to chase Bezzecchi, and in the end he did what he had to do. 

“Second place is more than what we were expecting because we talked with him and we said ‘Third, second, fourth is anyway good’. Second is more than enough.”