Ducati uses Marc Márquez to give Honda a stick | MotoGP

As has become customary in recent years, the rivalry between the two teams is already evident during the preseason. On this occasion it was Paolo Ciabatti, Ducati sports director, who pointed out that Honda has dominated in recent years not because of having the best bike but because of having Marc Márquez in its ranks. “When you bring Marc Márquez to the scene, we are talking about an exceptional pilot. I don’t want to disappoint anyone at Honda, but I think the 2020 season has shown that Marc Márquez has made a huge difference. It cannot be denied that Marc has been the key figure at Honda for the last six or seven years, “he began by saying at Speedweek. And, after not being able to count on Marc Márquez during 2020, the best Honda rider in The MotoGP World Championship was Takaaki Nakagami, who was tenth. Álex Márquez, for his part, was fourteenth. “In 2020 Nakagami has been the best Honda rider most of the time. Alex Márquez certainly performed well in the last third of the season, especially in Aragon he was super competitive. The same goes for Stefan Bradl, who became stronger and stronger at the end of the season ”, added Paolo Ciabatti, highlighting the performance of these three riders.Ducati has failed to take advantage of the absence of Marc MárquezIn Ducati, the best driver in 2020 It was Andrea Dovizioso, fourth. After stoking Honda, Paolo Ciabatti has made self-criticism and has recognized that the coronavirus seriously affected the development of his motorcycle. “Due to the way our bike is built, we may have suffered a bit more from the new rear tires than our rivals, especially in-line engine factories like Yamaha and Suzuki.But I don’t want to detract from their performance, because they have done an excellent job. We simply lacked the time to develop our new ideas sufficiently in practice, put them to the test and only then take them to the races. When we played the first races in Jerez, our riders hadn’t been on the bike since the Qatar test, five months earlier. In addition, our engineers had been removed from our headquarters for weeks because of the confinement “, stressed the sporting director of the Italian team. More optimistic has been for 2021:” We have learned the lesson and now we know the reason for this results. We know how to improve the balance of the entire bike. We will all have the same machines from last year on the track in 2021. Nothing will change, not even the tires. But we have much more experience now. Ducati engineers regularly come up with innovative ideas. So they are usually copied by competitors with some delay. The wings were a clear example. And if we look at the closer past, the rear wing comes to mind. Four manufacturers protested after the 2019 Qatar GP. Now you see it on every bike. The same goes for our boot device; Ducati put it on the track in 2018, no other factory had it. Now all manufacturers have followed suit. Same with the height adjuster. We started with this system and now some competitors use it in racing. If they were only original ideas with no practical use, they would not be imitated so assiduously ”.Ducati has stoked Honda and has also praised Dani Pedrosa Questioned by the three victories of KTM, Paolo Ciabatti has not hesitated to attribute these to the test team, in which Dani Pedrosa is: “They could do tests at any time, that has been an advantage, of course. But it was legal. KTM had permission to do these tests and benefit from their situation. They were doing very intense tests at Spielberg and Brno. Clearly that helped them with the setup of the bike at the start of the season. KTM did a flawless job and was smart about using the regulations. They won three races, one more than us. They have shown that they are already at a very high level. ”“ I think having a tester like Dani Pedrosa has given a lot of momentum to the whole KTM project, it steered development in the right direction. Their commitment has paid off, and KTM has avoided a number of technical errors during the bike’s development. Dani does an excellent job at KTM. It was a good choice. If you have a test driver with that much experience and charisma, you will find solutions faster that will also work with the factory drivers. That way the engineers can focus on the right areas and improve the bike for the benefit of the rider. In 2018 Dani finished his sports career for a number of reasons, but without a doubt he is still super fast and is very fit ”, he highlighted.