Here's the thing: Fridays in MotoGP are for keeping your powder dry, but the factory Ducati rider is done holding back. As Motorsport.com reports, Marc Marquez finished the opening day of running at Motegi in third place, admitting straight up that he faces a deficit to his rivals as the championship enters its final stretch.
A year after sealing his seventh title at this very venue, the Spaniard found himself looking up at a very fast leaderboard. His younger brother Alex Marquez topped Practice with a record-breaking lap of 1m42.811s, while Austrian GP winner Pedro Acosta squeezed his KTM RC16 into second, finishing just 0.076s off the top spot. That leaves the elder Marquez staring down a clear challenge for the rest of the weekend.
You manage yourself on Fridays; but from Saturday onwards, you have to go all out, because the others are very fast,
"At the moment, Pedro is the fastest one on the race pace and also on the time attack compared to me," Marc Marquez said after stepping out of his machine. He pointed out that while Alex flew on the soft rear tyre, he himself struggled a bit more on the medium compound, though he acknowledged that the usual suspects including Marco Bezzecchi, Ai Ogura, and Jorge Martin were right there in the mix.
That reality has forced a complete shift in approach. With the title fight against Aprilia duo Bezzecchi and Martin tightening up, and KTM gatecrashing the party between Ducati and Aprilia, the measured strategy of earlier rounds is gone. Marquez has vowed to press the attack across the remaining seven events on the calendar, accepting that chasing maximum points means accepting more risk.
Meanwhile, Friday pacesetter Alex Marquez noted that his brother looked ominous during the middle stint of practice when running the more durable rubber. With different tyre strategies scattergunning the timesheets—Acosta leaning on the soft and Marc preferring the medium—sorting out true race pace remains a puzzle, but one thing is certain: the gloves are off for Saturday.
"You manage yourself on Fridays; but from Saturday onwards, you have to go all out, because the others are very fast," Marc Marquez said.
