Marquez: I want fastest bike, not easier bike

If the other Honda MotoGP riders hoped Marc Marquez might push for an easier handling bike for the 2020 season, they probably shouldn't hold their breath.

"If you have an easier bike, it will help all the Honda riders, but my target is to have the fastest bike," Marquez said at the end of this week's Valencia test, where he spent two days working on next year's prototype RC213V.

"It doesn't matter if it's difficult or not, what I want is to try to win. It doesn't matter if I need to push more or less on the riding.

"But of course we are trying to work on the chassis area, to try to be easier on competitive lap times."

Marquez swept to his sixth MotoGP crown with twelve victories and 18 podiums - almost single-handedly winning the riders', teams' and constructors' titles for HRC, as the only Honda rider in the world championship top eight.

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The Spaniard was speaking after setting the seventh fastest lap time (+0.707s) on the final day of testing, as he evaluated changes to the chassis and engine and aerodynamics.

"I'm very happy about the test, we tried the first steps of 2020 bike. The first steps on the engine, some evolutions on the chassis, to try to understand. Negatives and positives like always. But overall, we did a good test and now in five days we will be in Jerez, and there I think it will be even better to understand the level of the new bike.

"The character [of the 2020 bike] is more or less similar," Marquez added. "I just concentrated a lot with the prototype, because I believe it has potential, but everything is still very new. Still we need to modify a few things.

"I did the best lap time with the prototype. And I just kept working with that bike.

"We also tried some new aerodynamic package together with the prototype bike, with the new engine, with a different chassis, and it was not bad. Some interesting points, still I think we need to modify it a little bit, because in some corners it was not the best feeling, but apart from that, we worked in a good way, we tried everything step by step, and the conclusions are clear. Now in Jerez we have the same items, but it will be important to reconfirm."

Marquez had a technical problem with the prototype in pit lane at around midday, which he suggested was related to the electronics.

"We were trying some different concepts, but already I went out and I felt something strange, and then I stopped, and they rechecked and there was some fault there," Marquez said.

"But now at the moment, we are not working very deeply on the electronics. We are trying some big things, engine, chassis area, and it's there that we need to understand better to improve the corner speed and corner exit where Yamaha is very strong."

Yamaha meanwhile is busy trying to close the top speed gap to Honda and Ducati.

Marc's younger brother and 2020 team-mate Alex finished the test 20th (+2.386s) out of the 22 riders.

"I rode with him for just one run," Marc said. "I caught him, I stayed one lap behind him, and he's riding not so bad. At the moment, struggling where is the most difficult point with Honda bikes, which is the last part of the brakes.

"It's there that I crashed many times, where Cal crashed many times, which is the most critical point. It takes time of course, but apart from that, he worked in one way, we worked in another way to prepare the 2020 season."

Marc and Alex are expected to share the same pit box for the first time as Repsol Honda riders, next week at Jerez.