‘I don’t want to be just the first Honda rider I want to win’
Marquez moves HRC’s focus towards 2022 in a bid to compete with Ducati
‘Bastianini was braking like an animal’ MARC MARQUEZ
It was a distant fourth place that has reinforced the game plan that Marc Marquez hopes to deploy for a revitalised 2022 MotoGP title challenge. Marquez was enlightened by two factors at Sunday’s San Marino round: the increasingly astute understanding of his powers as a rider, and then by a MotoGP rookie sensation on twoyear-old Ducati GP19. Marquez has formulated a recipe that he hopes will reinvigorate both himself and the Honda RC213V machine to challenge for a seventh premier class crown in 2022.
Marquez has won 57 MotoGP races primarily with his freakish defiance of the laws of physics, saving lurid front-end slides with elbow-scraping antics. Weakened by three operations to a repair his right arm, Marquez is working to step back from that cliff-edge style. That adaption, and inspiration from the Ducati playbook, were bolstered when he spent a bunch of laps in the slipstream of Misano podium star Enea Bastianini’s GP19. Marquez told MCN of his primary request to HRC boffins for the RC213V next year. “We need to work hard on corner exit acceleration. It is all related. You will stop better because then you can arrive with more speed, brake a bit earlier and not force the front a lot,” he said. “Now I make all the lap time in the braking area and this means more risk, too many crashes. We need to understand the way the Ducati guys ride.
“I was behind Bastianini and he was braking like an animal, stopping the bike and going out of the corner like a rocket.
“He was riding very good, he understood how to ride the Ducati, exiting the corner with a lot of torque and grip.” Marquez also had a close look at Ducati’s strengths a week earlier in his titanic battle when second to Pecco Bagnaia (on a GP21) at his favoured Aragon race. Marquez says it is now only the sublime race craft of Fabio Quartararo that keeps Yamaha ahead of Ducati in the title chase: “I believe the Ducati is now more competitive than Yamaha but Fabio is the fastest guy.” Since the summer break, Marquez has focused on tweaking his riding style to a new physical reality as much as he has assessing a multitude of chassis options. Finishing 10 seconds behind
Bagnaia stung at Misano but it came at a circuit with 10 righthanders and not his preferred anti-clockwise layouts: Sachsenring, Aragon and Texas. “This fourth place on a track that is clockwise is more important to me than second place last week on the left-hand Aragon circuit,” Marquez said. “But I am still missing a lot to achieve my goals. I was far from the pace of Bagnaia and Quartararo and not 100% physically. I don’t want to be just the first Honda rider, I want to win and fight for the championship.”
A warning signal for next week’s left-corner dominant Texas MotoGP at CoTA.
The 2021 world champion says he will not tolerate a repeat of the technical delays that crippled his title defence from the opening race in Qatar. Mir and the GSX-RR are still winless after 14 races with Mir angry that it is already game over with four races remaining.
“We have spoken about this and straight away Suzuki realised this, straight away I felt a reaction,” Mir said after finishing sixth in Misano. “I can’t complain about the work that they are doing now because I think they are doing everything they can to bring good stuff. But if we had started in a different way it would be a different situation.”
Mir is disappointed that Suzuki underrated their rivals and dropped the ball, the most glaring example a 10-race delay on fitting the rear ride height device.
“I’m a bit angry because I know my potential, I’m riding better than ever but now I have to opportunity to make some moves and win races, I don’t care if I make a zero,” Mir said. Sahara needs to demonstrate Suzuki can deliver on Mir’s ambitions for another world title on the GSX-RR in 2022.
Mir’s contract is up for renewal early next season and a further delay in performance upgrades could see his canny manager Paco Sanchez test the market for his 2023 services.
Mir is an asset Suzuki can ill-afford to see disappear.
The nothing-to-lose mentality is now entrenched at Suzuki.
Alex Rins scored zero points for the fifth time in 14 races with a lap 18 crash out of fifth, while chasing Enea Bastianini’s Ducati.
“I was pushing to the limit, nothing to lose trying to stay with Enea and I lost the front at turn one,” Rins said.