English
Italiano
Yesterday Marc Marquez called Alex "the biggest surprise of winter testing." The Team Gresini rider deserved the kudos: in Barcelona and Malaysia he had finished in the lead, in Thailand, however, he had to deal with his own brother. That's why the Spaniard doesn't want to get ahead of himself: "I have everything pretty much under control, but I was in the lead in the tests until Marc decided he wanted to be. That's the thing. I know him well, I know that on some days he was managing the situation and didn't do the time attack."
The family challenge is something he is used to and he doesn't have an easy client, but Alex also knows he has cards in his deck.
"It went well, it was a solid day and finishing winter testing like this is what you want," he commented on Thursday in Buriram. "I did the time attack in the morning and a race simulation in the afternoon, even though I had some problems I decided to finish it anyway so I could learn to adapt. It feels good to have been consistently in the top 3 or 5 in all the tests and I'm very satisfied, I feel ready to start the season. Now it's time to rest a little bit and recover energy."
Marquez then went into detail.
"I had a problem with the electronics, it was a human error, and another one with the front tire," he explained, "In this heat, even though I was riding alone, the pressure went up a lot. I still have to compare my data with Marc's. Those two problems made me lose time, but other than that I felt pretty good during the simulation. It was useful to prepare me physically and mentally for the GP."
Another piece of good news is the fact that the 2024 engine will be on the GP25.
"If they decide to use our engine it will be good because we will be able to make more in-depth comparisons and similar - was Marquez's opinion - But I also know that they will develop everything else in the season, while we will stay with what we have now. As I said yesterday, the GP24 is really nice to ride and difficult to improve, they can't take risks on the engine. The 2024 is an almost perfect bike so it is very complicated to make steps forward, right now it is very balanced. You can make improvements in some places, but it can happen to get worse in others."
Now it's time to give himself some rest before thinking about the first Grand Prix of the season,
"It's definitely my best winter of testing since I've been in MotoGP. I also did well in 2023, but it was my first year in Ducati and I didn't feel ready yet. Now I have the necessary experience, also thanks to the difficulties of 2024," Alex concluded.
