Marc Marquez has done it again! For the fourth time in a row, the MotoGP superstar made a mega comeback from the fifth row on Sunday. This time starting from 14th place, the Spaniard fought his way up to third place in the Catalonia Grand Prix, securing his fourth podium in a row.
“I’m very happy – not with the whole weekend, because we need to improve in qualifying, but apart from that we delivered a good performance in the race,” beamed the eight-time world champion after the end of the race in the MotoGP format ‘After the Flag’. A large part of this was a tire gamble that Marquez made before the start of the race. After completing the reconnaissance lap on the medium rear tire like the majority of the field, he switched to the soft variant on the grid together with Pedro Acosta and Jack Miller.
Marc Marquez plays poker with soft tires: Knew it was possible!
Considering the race distance of 24 laps and the high tyre wear on the asphalt, which offers little grip, this was a risky decision. “I told my team that they should give me the medium from the warm-up for the trial lap. If it doesn’t feel good, I’ll take the soft. Since I didn’t have a good feeling, that’s what I did,” the Gresini driver and says: “We had a few guarantees. We knew that the tire was at its limit, but that it was possible to finish the race with it. We just had to manage it correctly.”
Marquez was right. After a good start that brought him up to eighth place, he took it easy at first. He followed Franco Morbidelli and let himself be pulled up in his slipstream to Brad Binder and the struggling Aprilia riders Raul Fernandez and Aleix Espargaro, all of whom he then overtook in the final phase. Espargaro, who started on the medium rear tire, fought tooth and nail until the end, but ultimately had to admit defeat: “It’s true that I suffered a lot at the end when Aleix was behind me, but he had his problems too.”
Marc Marquez: I copied Pecco Bagnaia’s MotoGP data!
Incidentally, none of the other three riders who had opted for the soft rear tyres from Michelin came anywhere close to Marquez. Acosta and Miller both crashed in turn ten, while brother Alex crossed the finish line almost seven seconds later in seventh place – even though he had started one position ahead of Marc Marquez. How did he manage this brilliant performance? “By looking at Pecco’s data from yesterday,” revealed the three-time Catalonia GP winner with a smile on his face.
It was one of his biggest world championship rivals who put Marquez on the right track in Barcelona. “Yesterday he used much less tires than I did,” says the Gresini superstar. “I looked at it and copied it, that’s just how you do it,” he jokes, adding: “Long right-hand bends are still one of my weak points. I drive with a lot of lean angle because I’m used to that from ten years with Honda. I’m trying to stop that, but it’s not easy. So I’m looking at the driving styles of Pecco and Jorge [Martin] because they have four or five years more experience on the Ducati and ride perfectly. I’m constantly learning something new.”
After the sixth race weekend of the 2024 season, the picture in the MotoGP World Championship is slowly becoming clearer. Jorge Martin has 155 points, 39 ahead of Francesco Bagnaia and 41 ahead of Marquez. “Of course we are now a contender for the World Championship because we are third,” says the Spaniard, but also warns: “We are in our actual position because there are two people who are even faster. They are more consistent and always at the front, so I still have some catching up to do.”