The youngest ever double MotoGP world champion Marc Marquez batted away suggestions that motivation could be an issue ahead of the upcoming season, insisting he needs to improve further as his opponents will be trying harder than ever to beat him in MotoGP 2015.
Marc Marquez set the fastest time of the Valencia test just three days after winning a record breaking 13th race of the season, eclipsing Mick Doohan's win haul from 1997.
When it was put to the 21-year old that, like Doohan at the start of 1998 and Freddie Spencer in 1986 – following his 500 and 250 championship double -, motivation can be an issue after achieving great success, he denied this is the case for him.
“No. For me I will have the same motivation because I am 21. I will be 22 years [in 2015] and motivation is still very high. I know next season Valentino will still be there. I know Jorge will train a lot to arrive well to next season and also Dani. He change some parts of his team and he will be 100 percent motivated too so this is the big motivation [for me]. When you see that your opponents are changing things to try to beat you then this is the main motivation to try and improve yourself.”
Marquez's best testing time was set on his 2014 machine, having complained that Honda had taken the wrong direction with the updated bike on Wednesday. His main goal is to improve on where he struggled last time out.
“Now the first step is to try the new bike and to see if we improve in the areas that we want. In Brno when I tried the 2015 bike we improve in different areas but we lose a little bit in our strongest point which is in corner entry. With Santi [Hernandez – Marquez's crew chief] we need to think where we can improve. In the circuits that we struggle more like Misano, or maybe Brno, we will try to improve there. I think the time to think about next year is this winter at home. To disconnect some days, then in January and February try to think about next season.”
When Marquez was asked to rate his second season in the premier class, which brought 13 pole positions and twelve fastest laps along with his record win total, he suggested room for improvement.
“It's always difficult to say how I did. I think we can say a 'nine' because in this second part of the season we did too many mistakes.
“For next season I would like to improve the starts. This season I was able to manage it sometimes but in the case in some circuits next year somebody is much faster than you if you lose places from the start. Then to overtake the rider can be a race until the end. This is one problem, another point is to understand all the mistakes we made this year and to try and improve them for next year.”
Repsol Honda boss Shuhei Nakamoto stuck a deal with Marquez before Sunday's race, saying he could have a day off from testing on Monday should he close the season with a win. Yet Marquez was back on track with brother Alex to guide his brother around Valencia on his second MotoGP machine.
“[It] was hard to ride like that [with Alex]. But now I enjoyed it a lot with my brother. I have the gap to push to go up and defend but it was ok.
Now he will ride the Moto2 and think that he was not pushing. But he enjoyed a lot. Already in the last laps he was braking late, on a good line. I think when we stop in the box I asked him to go out again because I know that when you stay in the box everything cools down. If you go out again it's easier. He say 'OK' but then Emilio [Alzamora] and the team say 'No!'”
The newly crowned Moto3 world champion wasn't the only rider to try his hand at a MotoGP machine the day after competing in the 'junior' class. Runner-up Jack Miller put the RCV1000R through its paces and Marquez was impressed with the Australian's work ethic.
“Honestly I didn't follow a lot because I was with my brother and with you in the press conference,” he said. “But I heard he was impressive with the performance. We will see how is the progression. It's difficult to say in one day because this can happen in the first day. But then you go to sleep you understand everything. The second day you need to be much faster than the first. He did a lot of laps… Seventy? Not so bad! So today [Tuesday] his body will feel bad.
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