Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez has expressed his concern over tyre life at the demanding Termas de Rio Hondo circuit, but is nonetheless enthused to return to Argentina.
The rain delays prior to the Qatar Grand Prix forced Marquez into running the medium front tyre rather than the hard. The Spaniard favours the harder rubber as it can stand up to his aggressive braking style.
After just four laps of the race, Marquez began to chew through his front tyre and dropped out of podium contention. Despite finishing fourth, Marquez believes Honda did make progress with the RC213V over the course of the weekend.
“Qatar was a hard grand prix, but we improved a lot over the weekend even if we couldn’t reach the podium on Sunday,” he said.
“Now we’ll see if the work we did there will be fruitful in Argentina.”
Marquez has a strong record at the Termas de Rio Hondo circuit. He dominated proceedings in 2014, and cruised to a second win last year in the chaotic flag-to-flag race brought about by safety issues with the tyres.
The 2.8-mile track is typically tough on rubber, and this has the Honda rider somewhat concerned.
Famously, having commandingly led for much of the 2015 race, Marquez’s hard rubber began to drop away and he was reeled in by the extra-hard-shod Valentino Rossi. The pair collided on the penultimate lap, with the Spaniard hitting the deck.
This will be an area Marquez will work hard on throughout practice, but is confident of being able to mount a challenge for a third Argentina podium appearance on Sunday.
“The track is nice; I’ve always felt good there, but the grip level is pretty low.
“Tyre life is something to be aware of, as it’s normally very short, so we’ll work to reduce this issue and also to further improve the general bike set-up.
“We look forward to fighting for the podium in front of our Argentinian fans, who are very passionate and supportive.”
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