“If Ducati gives Márquez a bike like Pecco’s, he could be world champion”

2023-10-05 16:17:32

Jorge Lorenzo sees Marc Márquez fighting for the world championship in his first year with Ducati. The Spaniard knows very well what it is like to leave a Japanese factory to bet on those from Borgo Panigale, a change that the #99 made effective at the end of 2016 after having won three world titles with Yamaha, a factory from which he left quite dissatisfied. after what happened in 2015 in his fight with Valentino Rossi over the ownership of that campaign.

Although Lorenzo and Márquez will follow similar paths, the circumstances are not the same; The Spaniard landed within the official Ducati team at a time when the Desmosedici was a competitive motorcycle, but not the best in the paddock. Until that moment, only the factory Yamahas seemed capable of stopping Marc Márquez’s momentum on the official Honda, and following Jorge’s arrival at Ducati, the project began to grow by leaps and bounds.

It is true that his results with those of Borgo Panigale were not as desired, but almost everyone at Ducati today agrees that Lorenzo’s contributions to the Desmosedici development project They were key to the subsequent success of the transalpine factory, winner of the drivers’ title in 2022 in the company of Pecco Bagnaia, successor to Casey Stoner.

Marc, for his part, will not ride for the Ducatista factory team; The #93 will land at Gresini Racing, where it remains to be seen if Ducati will supply him with a motorcycle from the previous year – that is, a GP23 – or if they will support the eight-time world champion with a Desmosedici that lives up to its resumethat is, a 2024 version as similar as possible to the official Lenovo Team and PRAMAC Racing motorcycles.

Jorge Lorenzo has had the opportunity to assess the divorce between Marc Márquez and Honda; The occasional DAZN contributor went live during one of the sports streaming platform’s broadcasts to talk about what he considers was “a secret with voices”, news that almost the entire paddock already took for granted days ago: “We more or less knew what was going to happen, not 100%, but it was intuited. Ducati itself admitted those negotiations, they talked about that topic all the time. “A week ago I already said what I thought was going to happen, and this is how it happened.”.

Already thinking about 2024, the three-time MotoGP champion says “Do not rule out Marc even to be world champion yes Ducati gives you a motorbike equal to the official motorbike of Pecco Bagnaia and Bastianini”a strategy that at this time is not yet defined.

In fact, Lorenzo gives examples of some of Álex Márquez’s performances on the Ducati GP22 to argue his position: “We have seen what Álex Márquez is capable of doing, an excellent rider and Moto3 and Moto2 champion, but perhaps he does not have the aggressiveness or natural talent of his brother. That is what he has shown in the past. There Márquez has a few tenths and a half seconds of speed faster than his brother Álex, That will be reflected as soon as he gets on the Ducati.”

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For Lorenzo, the key to Marc’s competitiveness will lie in his adaptation to the bike and the material provided to him at Borgo Panigale: “If he adapts quickly and has a bike similar to those of Bastianini and Bagnaia, I don’t rule him out in the fight for the title. We already saw it in the past, Eddie Lawson stopping from Yamaha to Honda and winning in his first year, I think Biaggi happens in 250 going from Aprilia to Honda and winning in his first year. For me he is still the best Marc Márquez, technically and mentally. I wouldn’t rule him out“, concludes Lorenzo.