The last time Marc Marquez was riding a Honda racing bike was on 24 October last year, when he won the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. Six days later he suffered an accident while training with a motocross bike and for 2 long months he struggled with the diplopia caused by that accident.
Now the multiple MotoGP world champion has recovered from that accident and is back in action today on the first day of pre-season MotoGP collective tests at the Sepang track in Malaysia.
“The first day after the winter break is the worst, but I’m very happy to start preseason normally. I’ve been out for three months. It wasn’t a bad day, but we have to see how things turn out. I need to do it. more turns to understand more things “.
Marc finished eighth in the time standings with a time of 1’59 “287 and was the first Honda rider, 9 tenths from the reference time set by Aleix Espargaro.
“It was a difficult first day. I am missing kilometers. Not to go fast, but to find that feeling and have everything a little more under control. I made some stupid mistakes that I shouldn’t have made,” said the Catalan. author of two crashes at curves 9 and 15.
Honda brought to Sepang an evolution of the new bike already tested by the other Honda riders last November on the Jerez track.
“We tested the new bike and that added further difficulties. It was a good day and it was a weird feeling with some things I still don’t understand,” he said of the new bike.
“The 2022 bike is a big change. I’ve had the same style for many years and this is different, but we still have to figure out how to get the best of it. From there, having used a very similar bike for a long time, this is clearly very different. “.
“I immediately saw that the lap times were easier with the new bike. The lap time is coming, but I don’t know why. At the moment, my strong point, which is at the entrance to the corners, I have to sacrifice it. And when I didn’t do it, I lost the front, “he explained the style change that the new car forces him to make.
“I have the speed, but by not turning you lose the feeling,” he explained.
Marc is doing these tests as a pre-season test, but also as part of his rehabilitation.
“Today I told the team that I didn’t want to try new things, that what I had to do was do some laps. If I’m ready tomorrow, we’ll try it.”
After suffering an episode of diplopia from a fall in motocross, Marc went down twice on this first day of testing.
“I asked the optician if I could have the same eye problem again if I crashed in this training session. And he told me the chances are the same as if I crashed in two years. Speaking of that nerve, the doctor told me that this is my weakness: I have strong bones, because with as many falls as I have had I only broke my humerus, but that (the eye) is my weakness, “said the Spaniard.
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