Marc Marquez felt he wasn’t in the same league as Francesco Bagnaia and Jorge Martin in Friday practice for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
Gresini MotoGP rider Marquez returned to Misano on Friday on the back of his stunning victory at the Italian circuit a fortnight ago. On that occasion, the Spaniard charged through the field during a brief mid-race shower and continued to show strong pace in low-grip conditions to clinch his second win on the trot.
But with practice for the second event at Misano taking place in largely dry conditions, Marquez trailed both pacesetter Bagnaia and Martin, lapping three-tenths off the pace at the end of a tightly contested FP2.
That prompted the six-time champion class to concede that he doesn’t have the same speed as his two Ducati stablemates this weekend - although he reckons the field will be bunched up this weekend due to the data teams collected at the San Marino Grand Prix.
“I expected [to be] more back [behind] on the positions,” he said. “We know that on the second GP, in the COVID times, it was super tight. And in fact everything is very tight, everything is fast, everybody is fast.
“But it's true that when it's better grip conditions, the pattern of this year looks like Martin and Bagnaia, there, they do a step – and in fact, today, they were much faster than us.
“We are there in the second group like in Misano 1. In Misano 1 we have [rain] drops in the middle of the race that helped us to win the race.”
There has been a lot of debate surrounding the apparent gulf between Ducati’s latest GP24 prototype and the year-old GP23 bike the likes of Marquez have been riding in 2024.
There is a general belief that Ducati had made a major leap with the GP24 this year, but Marquez managed to win on his old-specification Desmosedici at Aragon earlier this month and then followed that triumph with another victory in the mixed-weather San Marino round.
However, the 31-year-old said he didn't want to get bogged down by this debate, as he insisted his focus was on the deficit he is facing to the two championship protagonists this weekend.
“My concentration every race and these last seven races is not GP24/GP23. It's just me, myself and the fastest one, that is Pecco and Martin.
“So right now it's three-tenths or even four-tenths per lap on the medium rear tyre.
“OK, then on the time attack we were able to be there on one lap, but it looks like they are in an easier way on the lap times.”
Bagnaia and Martin traded the fastest time throughout the afternoon session, with the factory Ducati rider eventually securing the top spot by just under two-tenths of a second.
Marquez and Enea Bastianini on the second works Ducati finished a further tenth adrift, while fifth-placed Fabio Quartararo trailed Bagnaia by 0.6s at the end of the day’s running.
Martin said he was surprised to see himself and Bagnaia having a clear margin over the competition on the opening day of the weekend.
“Now we can be fast but the important thing is to be fast in qualifying and to be fast in the race,” he said.
“But at the moment Pecco and I, we have a step in front. I didn't expect it, I expected Enea or Marc like in the test but it seems like today the conditions were a bit weird.”
