BARCELONA, Nov. 8 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The official MotoGP post-season test, which took place this Tuesday at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit in Cheste (Valencia), has been dominated by the Italian Luca Marini (Ducati) and has allowed two former world champions like Marc Márquez (Honda ) and Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha) ask for urgent improvements to their bikes for the 2023 World Championship.
After the closing of the 2022 World Championship last Sunday, the same Valencian circuit has hosted the first contact with the bikes and improvements of the next championship. A day full of changes of riders and mounts, new chassis or parts and, also, wishes and requests.
The fastest was Luca Marini with his Ducati from the Mooney VR46 Racing Team (1:30.032), followed by the Aprilia of the Spanish Maverick Viñales (he stayed at 225 thousandths and came to lead during the day) and by Marco Bezzecchi, Marini’s teammate .
But the times are, in days like this, the least important. Although it is true that Ducati, which saw Francesco Bagnaia win the world champion title on Sunday (he finished 12th in this test), is still going strong with its various bikes, in this official test the important thing is to compare the mount you had with the what will be had
The Portuguese Miguel Oliveira stood out positively, very quickly in his change from KTM to Aprilia and with the new satellite team of the Italian brand, the RNF MotoGP Team. In fact, he was faster than the official factory driver Aleix Espargaró, fifth.
And he got into the ‘Top 10’, with the tenth best position, an Enea Bastianini who will debut with the Ducati Lenovo Team official team after doing well in the Gresini satellite. A team, the Gresini MotoGP Team, in which Álex Márquez made his debut testing a Ducati that is faster and at the same time more manageable than the Hondas it leaves behind. He was fifteenth.
Precisely, at Honda they will have to work very hard in winter to provide good bikes to their riders. The eight-time world champion Marc Márquez, thirteenth by more than half a second, assured that the Honda factory will have to take “two steps forward” in winter to be able to compete for the next title.
The one from Cervera, who together with his new partner in the Repsol Honda Team Joan Mir (another world champion who changed bikes, was 18th) tested the new 2023 prototype, assured that the new bike improves aspects and worsens others compared to the bike that he rode until Sunday, with a similar race pace. So insufficient.
The one who rode the most was the French Fabio Quartararo, ninth fastest of the day, with his Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Yamaha, with up to 92 laps done in Cheste. And, like Márquez, he left for a well-deserved rest asking for improvements to his factory. And it is that the new bike seemed to be no faster than the 2022 one.
Other riders who tried their new mounts, brand change included, were Pol Espargaró (16th, with the new GasGas), Jack Miller (17th, with the KTM) or Álex Rins (20th, with the Honda of the LCR Honda Castrol). Discreet results but with a lot of room for improvement until the 2023 preseason arrives.
