How Qatar MotoGP debut proved Marquez's Ducati switch is already paying off

Marc Marquez’s first MotoGP outing on a Ducati went about as well as it could have.

That might not seem like much when taken at face value. Fifth in the sprint and fourth in the grand prix last weekend under the floodlights of the Losail International Circuit are not perhaps the results many were hoping for when the six-time MotoGP champion jumped on the all-conquering Ducati.

But let’s put that into a bit of context. For 11 years, Marquez rode the RC213V Honda. And as such, his riding style is wholly developed around it. On the Ducati, he’s had just nine days of riding. The UK Education system may have failed me on maths somewhat when I was in school, but even I know that fourth after just nine days on a completely different motorcycle is not too shabby.

“We analysed with the team a lot of things to try to manage the start, it was better today,” Marquez said after the Qatar GP. “So, this helped the race a lot. Then I was able to manage well the tyres. The thing was yesterday I struggled and today most of the riders were managing the rear, but I was managing the front more than the rear because every year with the other bike I was struggling a bit with the front tyre in this race track.

“Anyway, I need to improve my riding style in some points because still I’m not riding well. But today the race was constant, solid. I did my attack in the last eight laps, and when I did the attack, it was when I started to push more with the front and I finished the front tyre, and the last two laps I gave up because I saw the chance to crash and the chance to take two more points, three more points… I preferred to finish fourth and wait for two weeks in Portimao.”

After years in which Honda was well off the pace, it's only natural that Marquez has had plenty of adaption to do on the Ducati

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

All-out glory was something Marquez never considered for his Ducati debut. That much was made clear all the way back in October of last year when news of his move to Gresini Racing was made official. This exercise has always been about discovering if he can still be the rider he used to be after four years in the wilderness at Honda with numerous injury woes and a bike that now currently races in its own little “Japanese Cup” – as Joan Mir called it – with Yamaha at the outer reaches of the points.

What was clear throughout the Qatar weekend was that the ‘old’ Marc Marquez was more prominent. The smile was back, the swagger on the bike was back, and as a result, the speed was there, even at a track he has generally found to be one of his weaker ones.

If we dig into the details of his Qatar GP weekend, the numbers offer a glimpse at where Marquez is right now in his Ducati development and how far away he is from the top riders.

In qualifying, Marquez was sixth on the Ducati at Losail with a 1m50.961s. With the Losail track in great condition since a resurfacing last year, as well as the fact the riders tested there recently and the World Endurance Championship swept the surface the week before, lap times were at record pace.

Marquez ended the Qatar GP fourth in the standings, marking his highest championship position since he won the title at the end of 2019

Marquez was just 0.172s off the pole time set by Jorge Martin on the latest-spec factory Ducati in Pramac colours. Marquez was fastest in the third sector of the track, where front-end confidence is needed through some high-speed corners.

Over the four sectors, his ideal lap time was a 1m50.794s – which was third only to Martin and Francesco Bagnaia. That’s a significant detail, given both are clearly the reference riders in the Ducati stable at this time.

In the sprint, Marquez set the best lap of the race at a 1m52.040 and was just 1.143s off a podium. As for the grand prix, he was only 1.496s away and 3.429s from the win.

Looking at the average lap times from the grand prix, Marquez’s mean was a 1m53.146s (data collected from 20 laps and excludes lap one from standing start). As late as lap 18, he was still able to lap in the high 1m52s.

Marc Marquez was in close pursuit of the leaders on his Ducati GP debut

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

His average lap was just 0.160s behind that of race winner Bagnaia; 0.098s behind second-place Brad Binder on the KTM and 0.063s outside of Martin. Based on this, fourth was exactly where Marquez should have been. That didn’t stop him from giving the podium a good go in the latter stages, getting to within four-tenths of Martin at one stage before the Pramac rider shot away. As Marquez noted, that was largely down to him wrecking his front tyre. 

Directly comparing the 2024 and 2023 Qatar GPs is difficult as they took place at different times of the year, with 2024 directly following a pre-season test. But when you compare his Honda successor Luca Marini’s 2024 and 2023 weekends, you begin to see just how far off from winning Marquez truly was on the RC213V.

Marini set the then-lap record of 1m51.762s to qualify on pole on the VR46-run 2022-spec Ducati last year. That was 1.19s quicker than his best qualifying lap last weekend on the Honda, where he was 11th with a 1m52.952s. His best race lap from the 2023 grand prix, in which he finished third, was also 0.820s quicker than his best from last weekend where he was 20th.

Of course, there is a caveat that Marini is also still in a learning phase on that Honda. But it does illustrate just how difficult that RC213V really is.

Marquez ended the Qatar GP fourth in the standings, marking his highest championship position since he won the title at the end of 2019, while a weekend haul of 18 points is the most he has achieved in a dry round since the new sprint format was introduced (he scored 19 in Japan last year, but that was a wet round where he scored his only grand prix podium of the season).

Reflecting on his Ducati debut, he noted: “First grand prix for Ducati, of course, it was a solid weekend, like I did in the pre-season. Solid days, trying not to exaggerate, trying not to make any mistakes, trying to be calm in all situations, don’t be crazy.

“As I said on Thursday, the expectation is super high but I keep going with my style. I want to be patient this year, I want to enjoy again, I want to fight for the top five positions and it’s what I did this weekend. But yeah, I enjoyed it. Still every day I improve my riding style, every day I change a few things that help a little bit. Still, I believe that I don’t arrive on the limit of the bike.”

Marquez believes he is yet to find the limit of the Pramac Ducati

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

That much is obvious, but after the Qatar GP it doesn’t look like he is far from this. At points he admitted he was still riding the bike like he would if he was on the Honda, including in how he would extract one-lap pace. But slowly this is being smoothed out. And “in some areas” Marquez reckons his Ducati wasn’t as good in the GP as it was in the sprint, despite achieving a better result.

Again, Marquez moved to keep expectations in check after Sunday’s race. He was keen to point out that having the test in Qatar prior to the grand prix allowed him to better get up to speed. In Portugal, he will be “starting from zero” again.

“Portimao will be an important weekend because normally in the tests, in Malaysia and here [in Qatar], I take time to arrive in the good lap times,” he cautioned. “So, the fact we had a test here two weeks ago helps me a lot this weekend. So, in Portimao, we will start from zero.

“There is where we need to understand where we are. But apart from that, still I feel I am improving my riding style step by step. There will arrive a point where there will be a wall. Then you have to find a small hole to find just some tenths. But at the moment, it’s Bagnaia and Martin who were today faster than me and I must learn from them.”

While the Portuguese GP may offer us the definitive answer as to where Marquez is truly in the comPetitive order at this stage, Qatar gave a glimpse into the reality that he will be a genuine threat in 2024 if he can continue this upward trajectory.

Could Marquez challenge at the front in Portugal?

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images