Marquez: Same mentality, continue different Honda chassis runs

Marc Marquez says he will maintain the same mentality at the resumption of the MotoGP season from the first half of the year while continuing back-to-back tests between Repsol Honda chassis variations.

At the final round before the MotoGP summer break at Sachsenring, Marquez tested out the carbon-covered Honda chassis which he was confident of being “even faster” with but felt it wasn’t race-ready.

With Marquez holding a 58-point advantage at the top of the riders’ standings over Andrea Dovizioso, claiming five wins from the opening nine rounds, the defending MotoGP world champion says he won’t change his approach for the rest of the season to defend his healthy points lead – including experiments with his Repsol Honda RC213V.

“The second part of the season will be the most important but the summer break has been very good, having time to relax and disconnect but also time to prepare for the second part of the season with my brother,” Marquez said in Brno. “Now it is time to re-join the championship in the same way that we finished.

“Let’s see in Brno, to start the second part of the season in a good way, let’s enjoy it on the track.

“The first part of the season has been interesting because at some race tracks it has been dominated by one manufacturer and then other race tracks another manufacturer.

“The most important thing for us is that we were always there to have a chance to fight for victory or the podium. This will be the target for the second part of the season.

“Here we will see during the weekend which manufacturer and which rider is the fastest one but our target and goal is to try to be on the podium and try to fight for the victory from the beginning until the end.

“This is the way and if it is impossible then it is time to survive and time to take points in the championship.”

Marquez confirmed he will split his practice time running back-to-back tests on each chassis, including trying out the new carbon option, having trialled it with the same method in Germany last time out.

“In Sachsenring I felt better with the new chassis but then I raced with the old one because it was enough there,” he said. “Here, again, we will test the new chassis to get more information at a different layout and let’s see if it is clearly better or if we still have some doubts.”