With three contenders for the MotoGP title on 17 points, Márquez expects a weekend of suffering on the most physical circuit of the championship
The MotoGP World Championship lands in Japan this weekend. He had not done so since 2019, due to the strict restrictions on entering the Asian country during the pandemic. The Motegi circuit will be the first stop on a major tour of the Pacific for the future of the championship. Four Grands Prix will be held in the next five weeks (first Japan and Thailand, second Australia and Malaysia), with only one rest weekend in between. Normally, this journey outside the Old Continent is where titles are celebrated, although in 2022 the MotoGP category is so close that the championship battle could be decided at the final round in Valencia.
In fact, you have to go back to 2017 to find a ranking as tight as this year’s. So Marc Márquez, Andrea Dovizioso and Maverick Viñales led the last five races of the season by 16 points. Today there are 17 points separating Fabio Quartararo from Aleix Espargaró, who is third. In between, the driver of the moment, Pecco Bagnaia, who has put 120 points out of 125 in the last five races. The slowness of the championship says the Italian is the favorite, but on these tracks so far from the Ducati headquarters, where no Grand Prix has been organized for three years and where the weather conditions always play a relevant role, bet on a favorite without if you’ve already tossed, it’s like tossing a coin. Japan is currently even rocked by Typhoon Nanmadol, which threatens to cover the runway with water all weekend.
After several months of making a comfortable difference, Quartararo appears at Motegi with the scratch from the last race in Aragón and his body full of scrapes from his crash. The physical shouldn’t be a problem for him, but he’ll have to see how he’s going to manage the mental, because he’s already shown in the past that he makes mistakes under pressure. In case Aleix Espargaró has already tried to exploit this psychological trick: “Fabio is the one who has the most to lose, he is the leader and he is the current world champion,” explained the Spanish rider at the press conference held . held from Thursday morning. “Now he feels the pressure as we are getting closer in qualifying and he feels like he is riding the worst bike of the three,” Espargaró added.
In the other parallel championship that is Marc Márquez’s recovery, the Japanese Grand Prix is presented as a litmus test for his battered right arm. The Motegi track, which by the way is owned by Honda, is probably one of the most physical on the calendar, if not the most. The ‘stop&go’ layout is packed with powerful braking where the bike practically stops before turning and then opens the throttle to its maximum. As if that weren’t enough, the track turns clockwise, meaning most of the turns are on the right, unlike MotorLand Aragón, which turned left. The only thing that Márquez can take advantage of is bad weather conditions, because when it rains, the physical strain on a MotoGP bike is much less.
The feeling that remained in Aragon was bittersweet. On a result level, it was a disaster as the goal was to accumulate miles and see how the body reacted after completing an entire race. And he couldn’t do a full lap before his double collision with Quartararo and Nakagami. By the way, Marc had a meeting with both of them last Sunday and both agreed it was a coincidental incident. The positive from last weekend was the feeling on the bike, much better than expected. “In that respect, the Grand Prix was a success, because I verified that I am not that far from the level I would like,” said Cervera’s driver. And just in case he remembers celebrating three of his eight world titles on this track. Will it be another unforgettable weekend in Japan? The theory says no, but with Márquez you never know…
Source: La Verdad
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