Despite admitting that it will be challenging to go “full attack” in the race, Marc Marquez claims that the extended Friday practise for the MotoGP Japanese Grand Prix enabled him to do so.
Friday’s practise schedule was changed to include just one session lasting 75 minutes owing to the logistical challenges of getting the complete paddock from Aragon to Japan in just a few days.
Due to two crashes on the first lap of his Aragon return, Marquez was not able to finish the race.
After going “full assault” in the long practise on Friday, Marquez says he now thinks he will have to decrease his speed in Sunday’s grand prix to get to the finish. He expects the stop-and-go aspect of Motegi to really put his recovering right arm under duress.
“I feel quite good,” said Marquez, after finishing FP1 sixth fastest and just 0.147 seconds off Ducati’s Jack Miller at the top of the standings.
“Today the fact it was only one practice at one hour and 15 minutes, and tomorrow it looks like it will rain, I started full attack.
“Not like crazy, just I didn’t think about my physical condition.
“I just gave everything that I had and I felt it, because in the last part of the practice I started to feel some pain in some specific points.
“But we already imagined and already understood before coming here that it would be a very difficult circuit.
“And today I understood that to make a race full attack and consistent will be very difficult. So maybe for the race distance I will have to drop the pace a little bit to finish in a good way.”
In Friday practise, both factory Honda racers were fast, with Marquez being followed by teammate Pol Espargaro in sixth.
Given how difficult it has been for Honda racers this year, the latter was taken aback by how quickly he was on his soft tyre time assault.
But Marquez thinks the characteristics of the racetrack and the extra grip available as a result of the longer practise session make this improvement in qualifying performance understandable.
“It’s easy, it’s like always. In the practice, in Misano test, in Mandalika, in Sepang, with full rubber on track, good grip, you can use banking, then the lap time is coming,” he said when asked about Espargaro’s comments.
“Today the practice was one hour and 15. It means there was half an hour more of rubber on track.
“In the end, the grip was so high. So, as soon as we have high grip the lap time is coming.
“And especially Pol is struggling a lot with the lack of grip, like in Aragon.
“The problem with this bike the lap time depends everything on the rear grip because you cannot do anything with the front.
“You don’t have the feedback, you don’t have the information to push with the front tyre.
“So, the explanation is this: it’s a longer practice, more rubber in the end, and especially in this race track we don’t use the turning. You don’t carry the speed in the corners, and that’s our weak point this year.”
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