MotoGP | Marquez: “New tyre very different, flexibility needs to be improved”

Winner of the last two races, Marc Marquez approached the day of testing that took place today at the Misano circuit with all the calm possible. The Gresini team rider did not have any important new features to test on his Desmosedici, so he used the on-track activity to focus on setup tests. At the end of the last day of testing for 2024, the eight-time world champion placed seventh in the timesheets, half a second behind the leader of the day Pecco Bagnaia.

“We didn’t try anything new, we rode with the bike we had and we tried some of the things we had already used in some Grand Prix to discard them and get them out of our heads,” Marquez said at the end of the Misano tests. “We tested a little thing, a suspension to already have the solutions in case a problem arose tomorrow. In the last outing, where you normally put together all the best, I rode with yesterday’s bike, this was the summary of the day.”

You know, times are not crucial in a test session, the work was more focused on the set-up and the work that is often done during a race weekend. In this sense, Marc and the Gresini team seem to have made a great step forward, given the results of the last races: “It’s more a question of basic setup, we moved a bit to see, but we immediately returned to what makes me feel comfortable especially in terms of race pace. What remains unresolved is what I want to improve in the next races, that is, improving the time attack”.

The test day at Misano was the opportunity to let the riders try the new Michelin front tyre, which they would like to introduce next year. For the main riders, it was mandatory to test it and everyone gave their feedback, including Marquez: “I tried the new tyre and it is very different, one of the biggest changes in terms of tyres”.

“It is very stable, if you brake late it starts to work well, but it is a tyre that in the first laps, as soon as you go out, gives you the feeling that you do not know how to ride a motorbike. It made the bike very heavy. They need to work on the flexibility of the tyre. Who will decide whether to implement it? This is a good question, I do not know if they will do it through votes of the riders or they will simply implement it and that’s it. I do not know,” he stressed.

One of the topics that has come back to the fore is the radio communication system that will be introduced in MotoGP in 2025. Initially, it will be unilateral and will include pre-recorded messages from Race Direction. Marc gives his opinion on this first phase and jokes about the second, in which the idea of ​​extending the communication to the riders is being considered, making it bilateral: “I think they are only developing the message reception system. Two-way communication? Well, in that case we will hear everything! When you put something rigid on your head, the helmet brands have to test and approve it. We riders use foam earplugs because the rigid ones move based on how you move on the bike. The riders are testing devices that are not put in the ears, but outside and they have to be tested well for safety reasons”.