Immediately close to pole
The first qualifying session of the season had two faces for the reigning world champion Ducati at the Thai circuit of Buriram, where Marc Marquez narrowly missed out on pole position, taken by Marco Bezzecchi by just 35 milliseconds. A very positive performance from the nine-time Spanish world champion, unlike his teammate Francesco Bagnaia, who made several mistakes during Q1 that prevented him from going beyond 13th place on the starting grid.
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Mission accomplished
Describing his performance to Sky Sport MotoGP microphones immediately after qualifying, Marquez ‘divided’ his performance into two different moments, with the satisfaction of having successfully reached the goal he had set for himself before the session: “For some reason in the first time attack I didn’t feel good and I didn’t drive cleanly – he commented – but after the second time attack I saw that the bike was going better, I regained confidence and I tried to do a fast lap to get as close as possible to Bezzecchi. I knew that pole would be very difficult, but the goal was the front row and we did it“.
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Predictions on the eve
With qualifying over, it is now time to prepare for the Sprint and the long race, with Marquez himself indicating his feelings ahead of the double appointment: “For the first race we are all very close – he added – Marco is very fast, as is Acosta, and Di Giannantonio is also riding very well, so we need to understand what the level is. I am more optimistic for the long race than for the Sprint. They are very explosive in this one and we have to be careful”.
