The eight-time world champion – winless since Misano 2021 – said he explains the weak points when riding and racing the RC213V, but leaves it to HRC to decide on the technical solutions.

Marquez believes the RCV’s main flaws are “stopping on the brakes and the acceleration side“ but “I don’t know if it’s the chassis, the aerodynamics, the engine, or a combination of everything.

“This is something that I said already last year – and I keep the same mood [method] – I say [to HRC] where I’m losing, not how to improve. Because I’m not an engineer.

“So I’m trying my best on the track, I’m trying to survive in the races where I suffer, I try to be fast in one lap, I try to find a way to be consistent in the race.

“But then I stop in the box, I say the weak points, where we are losing more, where is worse, and then the engineers must think how to improve.”

The 30-year-old Spaniard spent much of the recent French MotoGP races fighting against Ducatis and KTMs.

“It’s so difficult to fight against the others, especially Ducatis, because they overtake you on the straight, [but] you need to overtake on the corners, taking risks, using the tyres more.”

Le Mans, where Marquez finished fifth in the Sprint before crashing out of a podium battle against a pair of Pramac Ducatis late in the grand prix, also saw the race debut of Honda’s new Kalex chassis.

“Turning, mid-corner, I prefer my [previous Honda] one. Going in. It’s one of my strong points, going in fast. But this doesn’t mean it’s the fastest way, or a faster way than the other one,” Marquez said of the difference he feels on track.

“It looks like with the Kalex you need to adapt a bit the riding style, you need to go in fast also in the corner, but it’s not necessary to push… you can do a few more mistakes. You can go wide, come back.

“With the other [Honda] one, it’s so critical, and it’s so difficult to understand the front tyre. With this [Kalex] one it looks like you have more warnings, but still we need to understand, because our weak point is still stopping on the brakes and the acceleration side. “

Marquez, who missed three rounds due to a hand fracture at the Portimao season opener, is yet to finish a grand prix race this season. His 12 points to date have come from third (Portimao) and fifth (Le Mans) in the Sprints.

LCR’s Alex Rins, who ended Honda’s 18-month victory drought at COTA, is currently the top Honda rider in tenth overall. Rins’ team-mate Takaaki Nakagami is 17th with Marquez’s new team-mate Joan Mir 21st.

The five grand prix races this season have been won by Ducati (4) and Honda (1), with the Sprint wins divided between Ducati (3) and KTM (2).

Honda is fourth in the constructors’ standings – behind Ducati, KTM and Aprilia, and ahead of only Yamaha.

While fuel is shaping up to be a major talking point in MotoGP due to the forthcoming move to non-fossil fuels (40% from 2024, 100% for 2027) KTM’s Heinz Payreder highlighted that “engine performance is driven by oil.”

That’s not just in terms of outright power but, with only seven engine changes allowed over the 20 rounds, limiting the loss of performance as each engine gets ‘older’.

“Now fuel is [a talking point] for everybody, but racing oil is equally or more important. Because engine performance is driven by oil,” said Payreder, Head of Engine Production and Testing at KTM.

“And also the reliability of the engine, in terms of how much power the engine loses in kilometres. These are aspects that are seen by technicians, but many times are not [mentioned].

“It’s not just about fitting the oil to the engine, but the engine to the oil.

“Normally it’s the valve and the piston that are the most stressed parts because of the heat and the speed,” but the bearings for the connecting rod are also a high-risk area.

On the level of ‘personalisation’ involved, Exxon Mobil’s Tomek Young said: “We joke that maybe we could create an oil specifically for one rider versus the other!

“I mean, this is our bread and butter. We put this engine oil together from components in-house. And that oil for KTM is actually quite interesting. We have, for example, a unique component in it which is not used anywhere else. We’re bringing it specifically for KTM.

“What advantages can it bring? We look at that oil and we try to understand how the overall composition correlates with engine performance, deposits, losses, and bearing wear. And deposits are so complex, even different parts of the piston. You can assess how deposits develop, the corrosion, power loss.”

During their preliminary discussions with KTM, the Austrian factory made clear what it wanted out of the partnership.

“We know they wouldn’t put our oil in their bike if there wasn’t an improvement. The sponsorship is not enough. It’s never about the money. It’s about performance,” Young said.

“In the first meeting that we had [the KTM] guys were saying, ‘We’ll leave no stone unturned. We’re going to look at everything methodically, and in 2024, we go for a championship’.”

Non-fossil fuels ‘not plug and play’ but ‘similar performance’

Looking at the incoming next generation of non-fossil MotoGP fuels, Payreder confirmed that some engine set-up changes will be needed but doesn’t expect performance to drop.

“Very, very similar. There’s not a big difference,” he said. “But for the long term, we want to gain [engine performance]. That’s always our goal.”

“The timing definitely,” he said of engine modifications to suit the non-fossil fuel. “We will try to use the same combustion chamber but will also test some different specs.

“It will not be plug and play. Because the components [in the fuel] are different, the combustion speed is different. So at the end, as a minimum, we will have to do a new calibration.”

KTM are currently third and eighth in the world championship standings with Brad Binder and Jack Miller respectively. Both have made podium appearances, with Binder also taking two Sprint wins.

VR46 Ducati’s Marco Bezzecchi, currently second in the world championship, is the only rider to have ‘withdrawn’ one of his engines so far this season.

Yamaha’s Franco Morbidelli has ‘used’ four different engines, with the rest of the grid either still alternating between the original two from Portimao or a third.

Instead, the pair lapped +0.867s (Mir) and +0.982s (Rins) slower on their new Honda machinery, for 16th and 18th places.

For perspective, Ducati Francesco Bagnaia, on pole position this year and last, was 0.255s slower in 2023.

Mir raised the lap time comparison when asked if he had any explanation why Yamaha – now the only manufacturer using an Inline4 configuration after Suzuki’s MotoGP withdraw – is suffering so much despite improving its engine performance for 2023.

Yamaha’s former world champion Fabio Quartararo was 0.687s slower in qualifying at Le Mans than he had been in 2022, causing him to drop from 4th to 13th on the grid.

The Frenchman’s race time over the same 27 laps was also 14s slower than last year, on a day when Marco Bezzecchi’s winning time was only 3.4s slower than Enea Bastianini’s in 2022.

“I know the lap time I did last year with the Suzuki and I’m one second slower,” Mir said.

“The Yamaha, I don’t know [why they are slower]. When you make the engine more powerful, maybe you [lose in] some other areas.

“It happened with us with the Suzuki, from one year to the other we improved the top speed, but then we struggled to stop the bike.

“Normally nowadays with this equality of bikes, when you improve one part, you make another weak point.”

Quartararo, leading the world championship after round five last season, is only ninth in the 2023 standings (now including sprint races).

Fellow former champion Mir has dropped from ninth a year ago to just 21st in the standings, with Rins slipping from fourth to tenth despite a Honda victory at COTA.

After saving a big front-end slide, from third place on lap 6, Marini was narrowly missed by following VR46 Ducati team-mate Marco Bezzecchi before being struck by the unsighted Gresini machine of Alex Marquez.

Both riders were thrown down the track before scrambling to safety as the rest of the field threaded their way past the scene of the accident.

Marini’s wrist injury will now be monitored by Prof. Luigi Tarallo, with the team making clear that it will not prevent his participation in their upcoming home Italian MotoGP at Mugello on June 9-11.

Marini is currently sixth in the world championship, led by Bezzecchi, and celebrated his first premier-class grand prix podium in COTA earlier this year.

Simoncelli, boss of the Sic58 Moto3 team and father of the late Marco, also questioned what the reaction would have been like had Marquez been involved in any of the close moves, contacts and collisions at Le Mans.

Marquez had been absent from MotoGP since fracturing his thumb in the Portimao season opener, when he collided with Miguel Oliveira and was given a double long lap penalty (which ultimately wasn’t served due to his injury absence from the following round).

“At this moment, where journalists and TV often spread false alarms, but only about those they want, and risky overtakes are discussed almost to the point of absurdity, I want to ask you a question: What if Marquez had been involved?” wrote Simoncelli.

“What if he had been the cause of one of the accidents or contacts? Do you think that the media would have played it down? Let me answer, of course not! They would have burned him as they did with Joan of Arc, just to quote a French example.

“Putting aside that the Marquez accusations sound like a familiar story to me, here was a guy that after 45 days of convalescence got on a bike, with a chassis never tried before, and looked set to take pole (that in the end was claimed by a fantastic lap from Bagnaia)!

“Unlike the others, Marquez is often accused of making aggressive overtakes and unfair manoeuvres. But overtakes, tight lines close to the edge, the adrenaline and the thrills represent the essence of motorcycling, without them this sport would not exist.

“A MotoGP race like Le Mans hadn’t been seen for a long time, incredible braking, borderline overtakes… and Marquez made an amazing race that kept us glued to the screen.

“These people represent THE spectacle of motorcycling racing, and we need them in a world where football is king. So I ask myself…why don’t we enjoy the beauty of this sport and let these guys do what only a few people in the world can do?”

Marquez finished fifth in the French Sprint race and then fell while fighting to defend second on the penultimate lap of the grand prix.

After missing three events with a broken thumb from Portimao, which kept him off any kind of motorcycle for seven weeks, Marquez promptly put his RCV and new Kalex chassis second on the grid (the only Honda in the top 13).

The eight-time world champion then battled for a podium in both races, a fifth place on Saturday being followed by the early lead of the Sunday grand prix. Marquez was still defending second place, behind Marco Bezzecchi, as the penultimate lap began, but was left pointless when he lost the front and fell.

“I was riding in a very good way. It was a long time since I felt like this,” Marquez said. “Not with the bike, myself, I was riding well.

“I was going into the corner with some slide, I was braking late, I was able to fight against the other riders. And I’m happy about that.

“Of course I’m unhappy about the result, but maybe the only problem was that the podium was close, and maybe I was not ready to fight for the podium. But anyway, I prefer to lose a race like this and not finish in tenth position.”

The 30-year-old added: “It was a really good weekend to grow my confidence. Because when you are in a difficult moment, it’s difficult to believe in yourself.

“It was the best [thing] to race again before these three weeks off, to say I’m there, the speed is there, I feel fast, I can overtake, and I can fight.

“Then it’s more difficult to fight with this bike, but we will improve [the bike] for the future.”

Marquez’s physical fitness is also sure to improve by next month’s Mugello round.

“When I got up [on Sunday], I felt like the third day in Malaysia [test]! Because it was a month and a half [without] riding a bike and I was not training well. So I was tired.

“The first part of the race, Miller was in front and for me was perfect, because the pace was not very fast. But then when I had that moment with Bezzecchi [pushed wide], then I came back, I used a lot of energy, because the bike was shaking a lot. But it’s the only way to ride the Honda.

“And then in the last 6, 7 laps I started to have some arm pump, [just because] I was tired not because I have problems with arm pump. My body didn’t follow the pace. But even like this, I was able to defend well.

“Unlucky is that I went wide a bit in Turn 7 when Jorge overtook me [and fell], and the main reason was the podium was there, and Zarco was there.

“When you are thinking ‘he will overtake me in the straight’ you try to attack more in the corners, and in the last two laps with used tyres, I lost the front. But OK. Experience, and the most positive for me is that I did [almost] all the race.”

Team-mate Joan Mir and LCR’s Alex Rins also crashed out, with Takaaki Nakagami in ninth the only Honda rider to reach the finish.

It’s not lost on Bagnaia that 44 of his points have been scored in the new – half distance, half points – Sprint races, where (as the tables below show) he is the highest performer so far, followed by KTM’s Brad Binder.

But Sundays have been a different story. Bagnaia’s three DNFs – falling on his own in Argentina and COTA, then tangling with Maverick Vinales at Le Mans – have left him with just 50 points out of a possible 125.

If MotoGP was still using the Sunday only system, Bagnaia would be third in the standings, 26 points behind Marco Bezzecchi (VR46) and 8 from another satellite Ducati rider Johann Zarco (Pramac).

Fortunately for the factory Ducati star, his combined total puts him one point clear of Bezzecchi heading into next month’s home Mugello round.

But if Bagnaia had finished in the positions that he fell from in Argentina (2nd), Texas (1st) and Le Mans (3rd), he would have another 61 points more.

“We are demonstrating that we are always in the front, always one of the most competitive, with the most pace. But then I am leading the championship by [just] one point,” Bagnaia said.

“Every time I think to be calm or to wait a bit, I just commit a mistake or I just crash like [Le Mans] for someone else or something else. This is something that I have to understand.

“I have the luck that there are the Sprint races now because if not I was already so [far] behind and I could have [another] 50-70 points or more before this small break.”

One area where Bagnaia has no need for concern at the moment is qualifying, having started from the front row in all but one event and from fifth in the other.

It means Bagnaia leads the BMW Best Qualifier table on 86 points (out of 125, the same scoring system as a GP race results) compared to 49 for next best qualifier Alex Marquez (Gresini Ducati), while Bezzecchi and team-mate Luca Marini are tied for fourth on 48.

Meanwhile, Brad Binder’s starting positions are again at odds with his race results. The Red Bull KTM star holds third in the world championship, with two Sprint wins, but is ranked just 15th on the best qualifier list after starting 15th, 15th, 11th, 4th and 10th (see tables below).

The 26-year-old, who has been on the Sprint podium in four out of rounds, including wins in Portimao and COTA, added:

“Without the Sprint races I would be so much behind, with 50 points. I have 44 points just for the Sprint races and this is helping a lot.

“This year it’s quite clear that we are always in the front, we are always there leading and the other riders are [fluctuating] in terms of performance.

“But years ago, it was not possible to lead in the championship [with three DNFs in ten races] because [the same four] riders were always in the front and one mistake can cost the title.

“So this has changed a lot.”

Bagnaia overcame a record 91-point deficit, and five DNFs, to win last year’s title.

No rider has scored points in all ten races so far this season.

 

The reigning Moto2 world champion charged from twelfth to fourth for the home Tech3 GASGAS team, beating his previous best MotoGP finish by six places.

Along the way, Fernandez overtook early race leader and top KTM rider Miller, then spent the closing stages resisting an attack from another MotoGP winner in the form of Espargaro.

Fourth was also Tech3’s best result since Miguel Oliveira’s victory in the 2020 Portimao season finale, with Fernandez only 1.5s from Johann Zarco and the final podium place.

“He’s doing well. He’s doing his work, he’s not complaining, he’s doing what a rookie should do,” Miller said of Fernandez.

“Results like today come when you keep your head down and keep working.

“It’s a credit to him and the team around him. They’re doing a fantastic job and I’m really happy for him.

“I was surprised when he came past me today, he kinda shocked me. But I was happy to see another KTM doing well.

“As I’ve said in the past, this bike is working well for all of us, and we all have quite different riding styles.”

Aleix Espargaro: “I didn’t want to ruin his amazing race”

Espargaro, who spent the final ten laps trying to catch and then pass Fernandez, said:

“Augusto’s race was crazy! Congratulations to him because it’s not just about to start on front, but he was able to overtake the [other] KTMs and to have a really solid pace.

“So I was very happy for Augusto.”

Espargaro was also impressed that Fernandez has been able to put aside speculation over his future, a reference to the rumours that Moto2 star Pedro Acosta is in contention for a KTM seat next season:

“I know how difficult it is to stay and to maintain your position in this paddock, you have to fight like a lion and he’s doing it in not the best situation,. In a team that we know in the past, what [KTM] did with the rookie riders…

“So his position right now is not easy. But he still works hard and he’s the reigning Moto2 world champion.”

With Fernandez holding firm despite a worn soft front tyre, Espargaro (on the hard front) revealed he had resisted the urge to try a risky last-gasp lunge.

“Actually, on the last lap, I had some opportunities to overtake him in the last split. But I decided to don’t try because I think the risk was too high and I didn’t want to ruin his race because what he did today was amazing.”

Fernandez is 14th in the world championship, with 30 points.

Aleix’s younger brother Pol is yet to race as a team-mate to Fernandez, having been injured in practice at the Portimao season-opener. Pol hopes to return at Mugello next month.

Following Suzuki’s exit, Yamaha is now the only MotoGP manufacturer without a V4 and is currently languishing fifth and last in the constructors’ standings.

Former world champion Fabio Quartararo, who has taken just one podium from ten races this season, is pushing for big changes to revive the M1 project.

In particular, the Frenchman has made clear that the 2023 engine upgrades are still not enough to allow them to run the kind of high downforce levels of their main rivals.

Starting a new V4 project would be a massive commitment for Yamaha, and there’s no guarantee that it would solve the M1’s issues in the foreseeable future.

Suzuki also proved that an Inline was good enough to win two of the final three races last season, but perhaps it’s time to revive MotoGP’s successful concession system, – redundant following Aprilia’s graduation – to allow, for example, extra testing for manufacturers at the bottom of the constructors’ standings?

Or maybe the MotoGP technical rules, which already offer different minimum weights (150kg for up to 800cc, 157kg for 801cc-1000cc – the unanimous choice) could offer a small perk for an Inline engine layout, such as a slight increase in the current maximum cylinder bore of 81 mm?

Keeping different engine designs competitive through technical regulations is a problem World Superbike has long grappled with and perhaps it’s time for MotoGP to also accept that some kind of balancing is needed to avoid all factories converging on one dominant engine design. Especially in a single tyre championship.

Both possibilities were discussed in a recent issue of the Crash.net MotoGP podcast featuring Keith Huewen, when replying to a listener question about how much influence the Yamaha riders have in bike development.

Former grand prix rider and British champion Huewen said: “Maybe Suzuki saw the writing on the wall for an [Inline] 4-cylinder motorcycle. Maybe they were topped-out on their development and knew that they had to go V4-style to get the type of power that everybody else had. And maybe that’s why Suzuki pulled the plug, even though they’d signed for another five years.

“There will have been other business reasons behind it I’m sure, but on reflection perhaps that was an element of their decision to pull out because they were at the end of their development with that style of power package.

“And maybe Yamaha are there as well.

“The four-cylinder cross-plane is a fast motorcycle on its own, when Quartararo can run his lines. But you can’t do that in a race situation where everyone else’s style and performance means putting the power down in a different place on the track. For Quartararo or whoever’s riding the bike, it will mess up their corner speed.

“Again, this is what worries me about whether we will be in a situation where we’ll lose someone like Yamaha to the series, because the investment in changing their philosophy of powertrain is huge. And [a V4] goes against their marketing in terms of what they’ve got going on in the road bike scenario.

“I just think to myself sometimes that maybe Suzuki saw where their future lies and dived out of the game. Will Yamaha do the same?”

Crash.net MotoGP editor Pete McLaren added: “Taking that a little bit further Keith, maybe in the rules package that is being decided for the future, 2027 onwards, there should be slightly different technical rules for Inline 4 cylinders. In the same way that we used to have different technical rules for different numbers of cylinders, just to try and keep that engine variety in MotoGP rather than everybody on V4s.”

Huewen responded: “Let me expand that out, because I think that’s a really good direction of travel: Alter the concessions package so the manufacturers that are clearly in trouble can test extra stuff.

“I think that’s where Yamaha is at. The limited testing is an issue. I think the concessions could be expanded. It costs really nothing and they can try stuff around the races perhaps. Book a test the day after or something, without going somewhere across the other side of the world.

“That’s the issue I think with Yamaha. They should really be able to test with their main race riders and they need concessions to be able to do that.

“So maybe there’s a position within the new technical rules package, when it comes, that concessions can be modified a little bit and fine-tuned.”

Returning to this season, McLaren wondered whether it might have been useful if Morbidelli had homologated the new bigger aero he ran throughout winter testing for the start of this season.

“Maybe they could have used Morbidelli a bit like Ducati have used Pramac as far the aero packages. Pramac is running that new ‘Aprilia-style’ ground effect fairing while the factory team has the evolution of the previous Ducati fairing.

“So maybe Morbidelli could have kept the new bigger aero, instead of joining Quartararo on the old smaller aero, just so they were gathering data on both in all these races.

“OK, it might not have been ideal for Morbidelli, but maybe with hindsight they could have said, ‘Look Franco, Fabio likes the old one, but we really want you to run this new one. We think it has much more potential’.

“Then Yamaha could have used the data gathered from both aero packages to help deliver their one aero upgrade they are allowed during the season.

“The downside is that it would have meant two different spec Yamahas on the grid, so exchanging tyre and set-up data would have been harder. Which comes back to the problem of only having two bikes.”

That came at the hands of Maverick Vinales at the Portimao season opener. Vinales looked perfectly placed to add to that tally at Le Mans on Sunday, only to crash out on lap 6 in a tangle with title leader Francesco Bagnaia.

While Vinales is at least seven places higher in the riders standings than after round five last season, 7th compared to 14th, team-mate Aleix Espargaro has slipped from third to eleventh.

Espargaro made history with Aprilia’s first and so far only MotoGP win at round three in Argentina last year, remaining in the title fight until the penultimate round.

The RS-GP has been further enhanced for 2023, but while Ducati has won seven races this season, with two victories for KTM and one for Honda, Aprilia – like Yamaha – is yet to stand on the top step of a sprint or Sunday race.

Espargaro, who took pole position at Jerez but has a best finish of fourth this season at COTA, insists the gap between Aprilia and Ducati is “not that big” but that they need to “prove it”.

“I feel that I have to perform a little bit better in the races. I believe that we can do it, because I feel I have a really, really good bike right now,” Espargaro said.

“I keep saying that the bike is good, that we are not far from Ducati, but we have to prove that! So hopefully I will do it at Mugello.”

While eighth (sprint) and fifth (GP) places were nothing to get excited about at Le Mans, it was Espargaro’s highest-scoring weekend this season and the first time he had taken points in both races since the Portimao opener.

“I can’t be happy with fifth place, obviously, but I’m satisfied after a lot of up and downs at the beginning of the season, and especially after my mistake in qualifying, losing a lot of places on the grid,” said Espargaro, who started from eleventh.

“Obviously the result doesn’t shine at all. Fifth place is not fantastic, but it’s a race that I really needed. Feeling strong, feeling fast. I did a lot of overtakes, so I hope it’s just the beginning.”

Espargaro, who had been lucky to walk away from a fast Saturday accident at turn one, added: “I just have a big bruise on the arm. It was difficult to sleep because I felt quite a lot of pain that I didn’t expect. But on the bike, I felt nothing.

“After this crazy beginning of the season, I have no big injuries. So now we can breathe a bit and come back in a very special GP, as Mugello will be for us.”

Espargaro starts the ‘spring break’, ahead of Mugello on June 9-11, eleventh in the world championship and 52 points behind Ducati’s title leader and reigning champion Francesco Bagnaia.

The Spaniard’s aim is to break into the top five during the remaining three events before the MotoGP summer break.

“We are getting more points, getting closer to the top guys, so hopefully I can do three solid races after this break and, by the summer break, I hope I can I be top five in the championship,” he said.

Pramac Ducati’s Johann Zarco is currently fifth in the world championship, 24 points ahead of Espargaro.

Vinales is seven points ahead of Espargaro.

Aprilia, which has doubled its MotoGP presence to four bikes with the addition of RNF as a satellite team, is currently third in the constructors’ standings, behind Ducati and KTM.