First assessments
The three days of pre-season testing in Sepang has ended and inevitably many lights have been – and still are – focused on the Gresini team garage. In fact, the interest of all enthusiasts was to understand what the first real taste of the new Ducati adventure for Marc Marquez. The eight-time world champion suffered some inevitable adaptation problem in the transition from Honda to the GP23, which he tried to overcome by grinding out laps after laps, until completing a total of 173 rounds.
Habits to change
“I've been traveling around a lot these days – commented #93 – even on day 1 despite the problems we faced and resolved brilliantly. The goal was to understand the bike as much as possible and step by step we are improving. We suffer a little more at the time attack level, where perhaps we work more instinctively, but also from this point of view we made some steps forward on day 3“.
The 'senior' Marquez in fact concluded the last day on the track with the sixth best time overall, just under six tenths from Bagnaia's best time. “From the second day onwards we started having some fun on the bike – continued the Catalan – even if I don't feel it's mine yet. I have to get rid of 11 years of habits on another bike and it will still take time, but the progression has been good and we must be satisfied with this first test on a track that is never really mine”.
Alex's smiles
Even more pronounced smiles on the other side of the Gresini garage, with Alex Marquez who set the fourth best time of the final day, rivaling almost on equal terms with the three official bikes of Bagnaia, Martin and Bastianini. “Day after day we understood the 2023 version of the Desmosedici more and more and I must say that compared to how we raced here last year, we have changed a lot – explained the youngest Marquez – the bike changes in weight distribution and we had to adapt, I must say with good results. There was time to find the rhythm and do some Sprint simulations. The times are good, but in a test they always count relatively and it would be a mistake to make comparisons with last year since the track conditions these days were decidedly more suitable for performance”.
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