Marquez: ‘Still I don’t have the good power, but I feel better and better’

The six-time MotoGP champion, who has produced three standout moments since his return - pole at Motegi, a podium at Phillip Island and a front row at Sepang when Honda were in deep trouble - has been much closer to the Marquez we saw prior to suffering his right shoulder injury at Jerez in 2020. 

Marquez looked set to miss out on Q2 during qualifying at Sepang before a brilliant lap on his own saw him move ahead of Jack Miller and claim second. 

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The Repsol Honda rider then replicated that effort just minutes later in Q2 despite seeing series leader Francesco Bagnaia crash out of qualifying directly in front of him. 

Although his race pace wasn’t enough to challenge for the podium, Marquez held on for a very solid seventh place finish.

Speaking about his physical condition with just one round of the year to go, Marquez added: "I’m very happy about my physical condition. Step-by-step I feel better and better, step-by-step I can play more with the bike and step-by-step I can better absorb the problems of the bike. 

"This was something that in the last two years I was not able to do. About this I’m very, very happy."

Right arm still not working ‘perfectly’ for Marquez after MotoGP return

Despite the positive signs, Marquez has conceded that he remains some ways away from reaching the level he wants and needs in order to be competitive on a consistent basis.

Marquez, who was seen pulling all types of shapes on the bike during last weekend’s qualifying in order to achieve the position he did, joked he wanted to see how his body position looked before going on to say his body balance ‘is not perfect’ at present.

"I don’t know! I wanna see these photos," laughed Marquez. "But still I don’t have the good power. The muscle is still not working in the best way on the right arm. 

"Still it’s not working perfectly. This winter get the maximum of this arm but in the hard brake points still I need to find the way to have [the correct] body balance. 

"Still my body balance is not the perfect one and it’s still a job we need to do this winter."