Losail.- This was the first race for Marc Márquez after the one he won in Misano last year, before the accident that forced him to miss the last two stops on the calendar (Portugal and Valencia), due to vision problems that they reproduced.
When he got back on the RC213V , in the winter tests in Sepang, the brand with the golden wing had turned the prototype around to adapt it to the new times (and tires). Both in Malaysia and in Mandalika, Márquez was completing kilometers and he did it riding fast, but with the unknown of knowing how he would do at the moment of truth, in the race. And the answer was obtained in Losail, where it became clear that the road to being able to get the best out of her is not over yet.
The most obvious proof of this was that, according to the runner from Cervera (Lleida), his workshop neighbor has gone faster than him, both in winter and in this first race.
“The positive thing is that I didn’t have any physical problems or pain. There were simply 4 riders faster than me. I didn’t have confidence with the front end, but it was something we already knew before the race”, recognized Márquez , who in the warm up, the last free trial, he went to the ground after testing the front rubber. That made him later opt for the soft one, with which he did not feel comfortable at any time.
“In the warm up we tried the medium front medium tyre, but I had a crash and preferred to go out with the soft one. Every day we discover new things about this bike. At Mandalika we will continue to adapt the bike to my style, but the potential is there”, he added the Catalan, who, true to his style, made no excuses either for his result or for the fact of being overtaken by his teammate.
“Pol was faster than me all weekend. I can’t use the rear brake as much as he does. We were saving all weekend, but in the race you have to balance everything and my confidence level is not the maximum at the moment. In training you can take risks because if you fall nothing happens; but in the race you have to be more cautious”, continued the multi-champion, convinced that this World Cup will bring surprises, and that some of them have already been guessed in Qatar.
“I think that Bastianini and Pol will be candidates for the title. And I would say that Enea is almost more dangerous than Pol. In this race he was flying”, Márquez clinched, satisfied despite everything: “I had never done such a solid race on this circuit”.
