After having a very very positive weekend that marked the second win of the season for Alex Marquez, the rider is now looking forward to be more consistent and sees this as an objective more than anything else.

‘We are very confident, it’s been a dream weekend, Thailand, the Sprint, this sunday’s second place’, the youngest of the Marquez brothers said before speaking of what is his main wish for the moment:

– But our goal is to settle in the top 5, because if we want to improve and race more we can have problems. The most important thing right now is to look for that consistency.

Up until now, the Gresini rider has two wins and two podiums as best results.

O conteúdo Alex Marquez looking for ‘consistency’ after ‘dream weekend’ aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Joan Mir once again had a race in Sepang this sunday that will certainly not go down well in his memory. With only four laps completed, nine minutes after the start, the spaniard crashed and brought his participation to an early end, and he was upset, but not forgetting that the manufacturer has a lot of room for improvement.

After the long race at the Malaysian Grand Prix, the spaniard spoke to reporters at the scene and guaranteed that despite his season he won’t give up: ‘It’s hard for me to come to the press and tell the same story over and over again, but even if I keep crashing, I won’t give up’.

Confidence for the future is high for the former world champion, although Mir recognises that there is a lot of work ahead: ‘The margin for improvement for Honda next year is huge, they have a lot of work to do’.

Mir is currently 22nd in the championship with 24 points and has 23 crashes this year, four less than his teammate Marc Marquez.

O conteúdo Joan Mir and his 23rd crash of the season: ‘It’s hard to tell the same story over and over again; There’s much room for improvement’ aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Enea Bastianini’s first season as a factory rider in MotoGP proved to be a true challenge. Injuries prevented him from participating in several Grand Prixes, hampered his progress, and kept him away from the top positions… until his victory this Sunday at the Malaysian GP.

The Ducati Italian rider spoke about the adversities he faced in 2023 during a press conference: ‘I think it wasn’t difficult; it has been a disastrous season because I had many injuries – two injuries. And also a lot of pain, especially after the first injury it was impossible to me to train. I was three months without training. I was in the gym only to work a little bit the legs, but you also have to work the other parts [of the body] if you want to be fast on a MotoGP [bike]’.

According to Bastianini, the fourth-place finish in the Sprint race in Sepang gave him the confidence that he could do even better in the main race: ‘It’s an incredible feeling now. It was a great race, because I saw after the Sprint race that with my pace I could try to do something more in the main race. And I needed the right mentality to be first in the first corner. […]. It’s fantastic because the team worked very well from the start. We’ve tried many solutions this weekend’.

O conteúdo ‘It has been a disastrous season; it’s an incredible feeling now’ – Enea Bastianini aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Pol Espargaró finished 15th in the MotoGP Malaysian Grand Prix, having to endure a challenging race to secure a podium. The conditions at Sepang and a less than favorable first lap significantly complicated the task for the GasGas Tech3 rider.

The Spaniard admitted that he was physically exhausted, still feeling the effects of injuries sustained in Portugal last March: ‘Wow, racing with this humidity and hot, with these bikes… maybe I’m feeling more this because I’m struggling more, because I have a quite a lot of weaknesses in my body that I still didn’t recover from the crash. Normally I don’t feel them, but I feel them especially when the conditions are this intense and to the limit. So I feel that my body is not OK, so maybe I struggle a little bit more than the others. […]. It is what it is, the race was very, very hard’.

On the other hand, Espargaró stated that having to recover from the loss of positions right from the start was another challenge: ‘I also had a problem at the beginning of the race. I had a big contact with Joan Mir in the last corner and I’ve lost all the positions – I was overtaken even by [Álvaro] Bautista, and I needed to come back. I overtook the RNF MotoGP, [Takaaki] Nakagami, Bautista. Then I lost quite a lot of time. I reached my teammate, I arrived to his wheel, but it was quite late on the race, I had a very used tyre. Plus, this problem we have on the front that the pressure comes very much up and then it’s very difficult to overtake. So I just stayed there until the end of the race’.

O conteúdo ‘I feel that my body is not OK, so maybe I struggle more than the others’ – Pol Espargaró aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Francesco Bagnaia finished in third place in the Malaysian MotoGP, in a race where the pace was truly impressive. For the first time, the winner completed the race in Sepang in under 40 minutes, an improvement of over 15 seconds compared to the previous year. The all-time fastest lap in a race was also surpassed.

Asked in a press conference about whether this pace surprised him, the defending champion replied: ‘I’m always surprised with the pace we are having all the season, because what was like super fast last year, this year is pretty much normal. There we finished the race 15 seconds faster than the last year and last year we were two seconds ahead of [Fabio] Quartararo, but many seconds ahead of the guys behind. We increased a lot the performance this year, maybe also because all the Ducati bikes are so competitive and we are improving together’.

Despite expecting an improvement in pace, Bagnaia admitted that it exceeded expectations, emphasizing the considerable improvements in the performance of the bikes: ‘I was expecting a pace faster than the last year, but all the race in 1m59s was outstanding, considering that years ago going behind the two minutes was incredible and now the fastest lap in the race was 1m58.9s. I think we are increasing a lot the performance of our bike, of the championship, and this is fantastic’.

O conteúdo Francesco Bagnaia impressed with the pace at Sepang: ‘We finished the race 15s faster than in 2022’ aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Fabio Quartararo finished the MotoGP Malaysian Grand Prix in fifth place. The Monster Energy Yamaha rider was 15 seconds behind the winner, Enea Bastianini (Ducati), with a podium being a distant possibility despite being just two positions away.

The French rider believes he achieved the best possible result given the competitiveness of the four riders who finished ahead of him. However, he still considers that his performance could have been better

– I think I could do a better one. I just struggled to overtake Jack [Miller], it took me so long. But at the end I’m pretty happy with how fast I was this weekend. Of course I could make a little better, but the position would have been the same. P5 was the best and I couldn’t make any better. The four Ducati in front were strong all the weekend.

O conteúdo ‘I could make better, but the position would have been the same’ – Fabio Quartararo aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

In a race weekend to forget, Aleix Espargaró tried the longer version of the Öhlins fork in Friday’s practice. However, after four crashe, he decided to dispense with this component.

The Aprilia rider mentioned that he usually only tests the particular fork on certain tracks: ‘I used it on Friday, I crashed four times and I removed it. I tried three times this year, but a lot of riders use it always. But I just use when we are close to the bottom in a couple of brakes and this is one of this tracks. We tried, but, no’.

Asked why he loses the front so much with this component, Espargaró explained: ‘The long fork allows you to brake harder, which is OK with the brakes, but when you release the front brake for me it changes completely the position and the balance of the bike and I have no support on the front’.

O conteúdo Aleix Espargaró explains his problems with the longer fork aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

After the Malaysian GP where he was in top form, Alex Marquez went one step further and called it his best so far before admitting that he expects ‘something similar’ at the next GP in a week’s time.

After the round on Malaysian soil, the Gresini rider was very happy with his performance: ‘It was my best weekend in MotoGP. I think it can be compared to Aragon 2020. This sunday I wanted to «dance» with the bike, but I could only do it for the first few laps, then it said no, that it was better to stay still’.

The spaniard then turned his attention to the next round at Losail, where he admitted that he wants (and expects) a similar performance, as well as some doubts… due to the asphalt:

– In Qatar, I think we can expect something similar. But I don’t know, because it’s a new tarmac, a dirty track and a time when we don’t normally go there. You have to understand a lot of things, but something strange always happens.

O conteúdo ‘Sepang was my best weekend; In Qatar we can expect something similar, but with new tarmac…’ – Alex Marquez aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

The return of Alvaro Bautista to MotoGP, despite briefly as a wilcard, didn’t go in the best way due to… WSBK Tests. The spaniard was prior to this GP works on his bike testing at erez and got injured, resulting in lack of strength on one of his arms, messing up his ability to perform.

After sunday’s race, Bautista revelead he wasn’t at his best shape: ‘You know we are a bit stubborn and we try to fight against everything. In the Jerez test I had a bit of a nasty crash. I hit my neck and I haven’t had any symptoms of pain or anything special. Since I got on the bike on Friday I had no strength in my arm and the problem is that it hasn’t gone any better’.

This led the two time Superbike champion not to enjoy at Sepang as much as he would have wanted, and planned, as it messed his performance on the bike: ‘I feel bad because I didn’t enjoy the weekend as much as I could have. In fact, if you look at my telemetry data compared to other riders I was no longer at their level in the left-hand corners and I got at least six 7, 10 tenths under braking’.

And concluded: ‘Bad weekend. Not because of the result, far from it, but because I could not enjoy at any time or ride at ease. Although I’ve been saying yes, the reality was that I was fucked up’.

O conteúdo Injury before Malaysian GP, at WSBK Tests, «ruined» the return of Alvaro Bautista to MotoGP aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Fabio Quartararo was Yamaha’s best man at the Malaysian GP and got again on the five fastest riders on track. He wasted a lot of time until reaching and overtaking Jack Miller, he considered, and recalled that, only when opponents are having issues with the tyres, he gets to overtake.

The french looked at his race, and regretted the time lost until he got to reach the top five: ‘The start was better than on saturday and that was important. Unfortunately I spent a lot of time behind Jack Miller and that cost me a lot of time. I don’t think that would have made for a better final result, but I think we could have finished a lot closer to the top 4’, quoted on Canal+.

Even so the results left the rider happy, with him already looking at something similar in Losail: ‘Still, we’re satisfied with the result and I hope that for Qatar we’ll be able to make another top 5. But … Unfortunately, as always, we’re finding it hard to overtake; you can only overtake when they’ve simply run out of tyres. We’ve managed to manage things better, but I think it’s important that until the last race, Yamaha look carefully at where we need to improve’.

And looked at the overall picture: ‘We finished 15 seconds behind the leader, which is no mean feat either and even though I think we rode a very good race, we’re 15 seconds behind the leader and that hurts. So the result is very important – a top 5 finish was really the aim, but now we need to find a solution to get a lot closer and more consistent’.

O conteúdo Fabio Quartararo wasn’t certain he could have done better than P5 in Sepang aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.