After a few tough years, Honda elected to radically re-design its bike for 2022 in a bid to cure the rear grip problems it had suffered before and make it more useable – something borne out of Marquez’s serious arm injury in 2020.
But the shift in character of the bike to make it more rear-biased has caused difficulties for Marquez in being able to adapt his riding style to the RC213V, with his best result in 2022 so far a fifth in the opening round in Qatar.
Salvaging fifth on the grid for Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez, Marquez was asked if he was disappointed in the direction of the bike given how hard he had to push for that result.
“I’m not disappointed, because it’s true that it was a big change,” he replied. “I heard some comments, but I agreed with that change. But it’s true that with the other bike everything was more natural.
“It was a bike that I rode since 2013, small evolutions, but the character was the same.
“Now there’s a big change and even Honda is trying to understand many things.
“Pol [Espargaro] for example is riding in a different way. He’s fast, even if he starts 13th, he’s riding maybe better than me this new bike because I think he rides a bit similar to what he had in KTM.
“So, it’s something with riding style that I need to improve.”
Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
Marquez was left in 19th at the end of Friday’s running, but says this was down to trying a big set-up change that didn’t work.
He reverted to a setting to allow him to ride the bike “in the way it wants to be ridden”, but continues to struggle under braking and with turning on the front.
“It’s true that with this new bike it’s a big difference,” he added. “You need to ride in a different way. Yesterday I said already we needed to work to try to adapt the bike in a radical way to my riding style, but with this bike I cannot ride like this….
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