2023-09-11 12:43:05
Came the day: September 11, 2023. The time was 10.18 minutes. The case: Marc Márquez, desperate throughout the year, he finally gets on the first prototype of the 2024 Honda RC213V, with which the winged firm tries to convince its eight-time world champion to fulfill the remaining year of his contract and offer him a opportunity (more) to manufacture and develop a competitive motorcycle, something that has not happened in the last three years.
It has been more than 600 days since Márquez has won a grand prix and it was, precisely, at the Misano circuit (Italy). Márquez hasn’t been on the podium for a long time. He hasn’t been in the top five for a long time. And, therefore, MM93 has been wasting his days, his best years, for a long time, racing with a motorcycle that does not allow him to fight for the first places.
That was why the champion from Cervera (Lleida), now living in Madrid, was looking forward to September 11 to test the first model of next year’s Honda, to find out if his lifelong factory, the one that has helped to be the best of all time, has opted to change the method, the people and the approach of the bike for next season.
Facts, not words
“There have been too many words and, now, I only move based on facts, that’s why I want to see a reaction, signs, in this test,” Márquez commented yesterday. Today, after doing three five-lap outings on the Misano track, he has finally got on the first 2024 prototype, which, without a doubt, will not have much to do with the bike that he will debut in the first test next year. It was 10:18 on a hot and sunny morning at the Marco Simoncelli circuit.
Not only Márquez had the 2024 prototype, Joan Mir also had, in his box, next to the motorcycle with which he raced (he fell by himself) yesterday at the Misano GP, the motorcycle of the future. And, one garage further on, the German Stefan Bradl, for all the most discreet and least level test driver in the World Championship, owned two other 2024 models, the last one completely black, which could mean that it is the last version of all the RC213Vs. of the 24th.
The test is being carried out very calmly, although a group of very important drivers such as the World Champion ‘Pecco’ Bagnaia, injured in Barcelona and very fatigued after his effort yesterday, his teammate Enea Bastianini, recently operated on for two fractures, nor the fast Marco Bezzecchi (Ducati) and neither of the two star test riders, Dani Pedrosa (KTM), and Michele Pirro ( Ducati).
While the riders were entering and leaving and exchanging their two motorcycles, managers, team managers, engineers and various technicians were walking, surreptitiously, through the pit lane, like someone who didn’t want to, trying to discover the new features, the changes. , the tricks, that were in each of the 2024 prototypes of its rivals.
The day, which began at nine in the morning and will end at six in the afternoon, will be lived with enormous intensity and although, most likely, it will not serve to discover if Marc Márquez announces his decision, it should reveal what future awaits him to Honda’s next year’s project, which remains a real unknown.
It goes without saying that the Honda garage and, especially, on Márquez’s side, were accumulating young, junior, rookie-looking engineers, who the winged firm has moved to Misano to continue the test and, without a doubt, begin to get used to the times and ways of the World Cup MotoGP in case one day they are sent to the final fight of their projects.
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