The eight-time world champion endured a tough winter testing phase with the 2023 Honda, and felt coming into this weekend’s first round of the 2023 season that he could not be considered a title challenger at the moment.
Indeed, Marquez was outside of the Q2 cut-off for qualifying at the end of Friday’s practices down in 14th and was wary that making it out of Q1 on Saturday morning would be no easy task.
