Marquez says the first thing is to be competitive

Marc Marquez is keen to test his and the 2022 Honda’s level on the opening European MotoGP event in Portimao, following a spectacular comeback from last to sixth in Texas.

Despite the fact that this will be MotoGP’s fourth return to the Portuguese track since the start of 2020, ailments have limited Marquez’s prior appearances to a seventh-place result last April during his comeback from a shattered right arm.

After missing the November round due to diplopia, Marquez suffered another bout of double vision after a highside in Mandalika last month.

COTA passed with no further eye troubles, and while Marquez’s racing aspirations were dashed by a technical issue at the start, he still had the speed to challenge for the win.

Marquez seems to be on a different tangent this season. He has been making comebacks his entire MotoGP career and therefore he is known as the king of comebacks. This season too he did it at COTA from a near impossible situation. However all is not well with him.

“Because COTA is a track that I am highly familiar with, I was able to pinpoint the bike’s weak points.” ‘You need to work there and there if you want to be competitive in the next races,’ I told Honda. “It’s true that Pol and Nakagami ride well on particular race courses, but there are definitely areas where we need to improve if we want to be consistent across all tracks.” “We have a bike that has excellent brakes, but it’s tough to turn the bike and understand the front tyre.” I

“[We] made some improvements in COTA, and I tried some new stuff on the bike.” Therefore the idea would be to keep continuing for the performances to improve rather than looking at podium finishes each time ahead.