Marquez "needs rain" to limit dry MotoGP running at physical Misano

Marquez’s recovery from his serious right arm break has been much slower than anticipated this season, with the six-time world champion continuing to lack strength in his right shoulder.

This is affecting him at clockwise circuits, with the nature of Misano and especially the high grip levels it offers making the Honda “more aggressive” in dry conditions.

Marquez was ninth overall at the end of Friday’s running, 0.434 seconds off the pace, while in the fully wet FP2 he was fifth-quickest.

However, Marquez admits the Honda is not currently as competitive in wet conditions as it normally is.

“Straight away this morning when I start in FP1 I said ‘ok, we need some rain conditions in some practices to do less laps in the dry’ because it’s quite demanding, about physical condition this race track,” he said.

“With the new surface, the grip is really high, everything becomes more and more aggressive.

“I was struggling in FP1 a little bit, but even like this the lap time was not bad.

“Anyway, let’s see. It’s true that in the wet we feel a bit more competitive, but not enough.

“Even on wet conditions we are struggling, all Honda riders for some reason.

“So, we must understand why because normally in when conditions we are very strong.”

Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Despite the physical issues Marquez has to work through, he is continuing to help development of the Honda and was once again trying the updated chassis that was brought to Aragon.

“Basically it was the same plan like Aragon, the same two chassis as in Aragon, but now it was time to reconfirm,” Marquez added.

“Unluckily we couldn’t try well because we only had half a session in dry.

“Tomorrow we will come back to chassis we work on in Aragon, because it’s time to do but still we are not sure but we have a test on Tuesday, Wednesday to continue working, to prepare well and continue to analyse.

“But we are working on different race tracks, with different layouts and different grip on the track to try to understand for next year.”