Marquez works on wheelies for Austria

MotoGP champion and 2017 Czech Republic Grand Prix winner Marc Marquez spent Monday's Brno test trying to adapt his Honda for the hard acceleration areas at this weekend's Austrian round.

Despite leading the world championship by 14-points, unruly acceleration continues to be the weak point of the RC213V package.

"The track was in a really good condition, so the lap time came quite easy," said Marquez, who was quickest when he finished testing, but later outpaced by Valentino Rossi.

"We tried a few things and it was the perfect way to try to understand a few set-ups, thinking about the Austria GP. There, the important thing is try to avoid the wheelie but at the same time try to have a good braking stability.

"Still one of our problems is the acceleration side because of the wheelie and we work in electronics but especially the set-up. We try to avoid [the wheelies], but when we improve we lose in other points."

With Yamaha debuting a new downforce fairing at the test, and Ducati the race weekend, Marquez suggested a fairing update from Honda to help reduce wheelies is not far away.

"Of course we are thinking about the rest of the season and we are thinking to have more and more new items like we saw the other manufacturers today, who are working on a different type of fairing to try to improve the acceleration. But then you lose top speed, so you need to find a compromise. We tried to change a little bit the bike balance to have less wheelie, but also I need to adapt my riding style to that kind of set-up."

Honda and Yamaha have now joined Ducati in using the carbon fibre Ohlins forks.

"I already use them during the weekend," Marquez confirmed. "I tested them on the summer break and basically not a very, very big difference. Because for example on Friday of the race weekend I used the standard one, then then I came back to the other one. Not a big difference, looks like a little bit lighter but also means that this sometimes is shaking little bit easier. But about the rest positive and happy."

Marquez did not re-try the new chassis from the private test in the summer break.