MotoGP | Marquez: “Pecco and I will help each other raise our level”

The Austrian Grand Prix immediately brings to mind the battles for victory that left you breathless until the checkered flag. The battle for first place at the time was between Marc Marquez and Andrea Dovizioso, but MotoGP arrives at the Red Bull Ring this weekend with a completely different scenario. Pecco Bagnaia and Jorge Martin are the favorites, but they are joined by Enea Bastianini, who at Silverstone overtook the eight-time world champion in the championship, still not fully adapted to the Ducati.

The Gresini rider arrives in Spielberg as a pursuer, with the same feelings as always that, he claims, lead him not to place himself among the favorites. In fact, having entered the second half of the season, Marc has not yet returned to the top step of the podium, from which he has been missing for 1029 days. Could Austria represent the end of the fast? Marc is not convinced, on the contrary.

“Here I lost three consecutive victories at the last corner,” Marquez recalls. “It’s a track I like, I feel good. Now I’m riding the best bike, which is the Ducati. But the three in front of me in the championship are riding the same bike as me, but more advanced. So they are faster and I have to continue learning and pushing. Let’s see if we can get closer. In any case, I don’t think we’ll get to the last corner fighting with the top three this year. But we’ll see, if we find a good base and we’re perfect, we can try.”

Bagnaia, Martin and Bastianini have the GP24, the latest update that is making the difference compared to the other Ducatis. Marquez is not the only one to say it and, despite sometimes being the best interpreter of the GP23 if you look at the standings, he does not want to make proclamations: “You have to look at reality, in the last races Bastianini has recovered starting from behind, but he has always been a step ahead of us. Especially Pecco and Martin have been, with their level of consistency. What is missing? I think I have a good bike, a good team. You can win races, but I have to improve my riding style and I will always be self-critical. At the moment I have what I have, and with this you can do very well”.

“This year, the way I start on Friday morning affects me a lot. If I start comfortable, the weekend is good. At Silverstone I started far away, then on Sunday I got back to the leading group in the last laps, but it was too late. It depends a lot on the basic setup. Where to start? It seems that from track to track we change a bit too much, but we hope to find a comfortable base for this second part of the season. If I feel comfortable, I can fight with the top three, but everything has to be perfect,” he continues, talking about the difficulties he has encountered during these first ten races.

Will the gap be closed next year? The rider from Cervera will move to the official team and will have the Desmosedici GP25, the latest model that Pecco Bagnaia will also have. There is a lot of anticipation to see the two riders together in the garage, but some fear that it will be “two cocks in the henhouse”. The reigning champion himself has stated that Marquez’s arrival will be “great or a disaster”.

These statements were followed by Marc’s response: “For me it will just be a new experience, Pecco is the reference in Ducati, he is very fast and obviously I have to learn a lot from him. Now I have the data, but inside the box it will be different. As is logical in a box, when there are two riders who are fast, they help each other, directly or indirectly. It helps to raise the level, but this means competitiveness in the box. It can still be a healthy competitiveness, then everyone has their own technical team, but I don’t see why the relationship should be bad”.

In the past, the eight-time world champion found himself in the opposite situation, he was an expert and a great connoisseur of the bike and new teammates who had to learn: “It’s a different situation. In Honda, riding the same bike for years, as soon as there was even a small problem on Friday, both the team and I knew what we needed to solve it. Now I’m investigating things, next year we’ll change technical team again. I have to be guided by Ducati, which is the winning team. I arrive in a box where the world champion has been for the last two years, maybe even three years. Clearly I arrive with a disadvantage, but not a technical one. He’s faster and he’s showing it on the track, it’s more about trust, about knowledge. It’s the trust that comes from winning: things that don’t work, work, uncomfortable situations that become comfortable”.