Marc Marquez: Brazilian MotoGP track “good” but “not the best for my style”

Marc Marquez has given his verdict on the Brazilian MotoGP track, which he admits is not one that suits his style.

Nine of the Autodromo Internacional de Goiania’s 14 corners are right-handed, something that does not play to the strengths of Marc Marquez, who has been famously strong in left-handers and anti-clockwise circuits throughout his career, and whose weakness in long right-handers grew after his right humerus fracture in 2020.

Marquez admitted after Practice on Friday at the Brazilian MotoGP that, although the Goiania circuit is not one that suits him, it is a “good circuit”.

“I need to separate if it’s a good layout for me or a good circuit,” he told MotoGP.com.

“So, this one is a good circuit. Not the best layout for my riding style, for those long right corners, but it’s a good circuit, I enjoy it. 

“The short circuits I like, I prefer short circuits than long circuits, and especially that sector two, three, that is the left corners, I like a lot.”

Both practices on Friday were hit by the weather to some extent. There was a one-hour delay to the whole schedule, for a start, because of the amount of water on the surface after overnight rain stretched long into Friday morning. The track started to dry by the end of FP1, but Marquez was one of a majority of riders to complete the whole session on wets.

In Practice, the track started dry by patchy, but rain in the final 20 minutes effectively cut the session short. It made for a complicated day, but an enjoyable one nonetheless in Marquez’s view.

“It was a nice day,” he said, “but at the same time a tricky day. 

“We enjoyed, because it’s a new layout, but at the same time we suffered a lot because it was super-risky out there with those wet patches because the corners are quite fast in turn one, two, three, and those wet patches, if you do a mistake, you can pay an expensive consequence. 

“But, apart from that, the layout is good, and let’s see if tomorrow we can have normal conditions.”

Marquez added that there was not much to learn about the new circuit on this first day because of the conditions.

“You learn the brake points, you learn a bit the lines, but in the end you are looking more at the wet patches than the layout,” he said. 

“So, at the moment it’s difficult to say. It’s true that in wet conditions [in FP1] you could ride as you want, but this afternoon was more tricky.”

Ducati Lenovo Team rider Marquez finished Practice second-fastest behind Johann Zarco and as the fastest Ducati rider, the second-best of the Desmosedicis being Alex Marquez in sixth.