Analysis: Why Ducati thinks Marc Marquez’s Australia advantage will vanish

Crash’s MotoGP Editor Peter McLaren recently said on our Australian GP preview podcast that he had a play around with ChatGPT to see what it would predict as the outcome of the final rounds in the 2024 MotoGP title battle.

How accurate that prediction is will be known in just under a month’s time, though I am sceptical of AI’s ability to call MotoGP results.

However, say you asked ChatGPT to predict how the opening day of practice for the 2024 Australian Grand Prix would go and I reckon it would have gotten it absolutely spot on. Heavy rain forcing a session cancellation? Check. Drama for the championship contenders? Check. Marc Marquez doing Marc Marquez things? Check. A red flag caused by some strolling wildlife? Check.

It truly was an eventful day at Phillip Island on Friday, and one that, really, is hard to gleam anything from.

One of the biggest losers of the day was Michelin. Phillip Island had been resurfaced ahead of this year’s racing calendar at the picture book-worthy track. This caused havoc for Pirelli and the World Superbike field in February, when mandatory pitstops for the races were forced on safety grounds as special tyres for the new asphalt couldn’t be made in time.

Michelin, at least, has had a bit more lead time with its tyres. Three front and rear options have been brought to Phillip Island. The soft rear is the medium used last year, while the medium and hard options are a stiffer construction like the one used at the Indonesian GP in a bid to cope with the heat demands the rubber will face on the new asphalt at an already high-load track.

But the cancellation of FP1 and the rain threat that hung over Practice meant not much long run data could be gathered. With the necessity of a direct passage to Q2, most spent their time on the soft rear tyre chasing top 10 times.

Michelin motorsport boss Piero Taramasso later said the soft tyre didn’t show any major signs of wear, so for the sprint it will be a viable option. But it really needs a dry 13-lap sprint to properly assess the tyre in race conditions to see its viability for the grand prix. All three front options were tried and met with good reviews.

At this stage, at least, Sunday isn’t shaping up to be a 2013-esque pitstop affair. And that is good news for the championship leaders after a stressful Friday.

With just 10 points splitting Pramac’s Jorge Martin and reigning double world champion Francesco Bagnaia, the magnitude of any error now will be far more severe as we speed towards the conclusion of the campaign over the next four rounds.

Friday at Phillip Island was a day to see who could hold their nerve. Martin crashed at the start of practice. He clattered into Fabio Quartararo in a bid to avoid a bigger accident with the Yamaha rider. With his second bike set up for wet conditions, his Pramac team had to put on a repair job on his first machine. With the omnipresent weather threat, it was time Martin could ill-afford.

When he finally got back out onto the track, a meandering goose forced race direction to throw a red flag. At the time of the stoppage neither he, nor Bagnaia, had a lap time on the board. A sudden downpour would have put both in Q1.

The rain kept away and both safely made it into Q2, with Martin fourth and Bagnaia 0.046s behind in fifth. Enea Bastianini, however, was not so fortunate and he could only managed 16th. In his battle for third in the standings with Marc Marquez, the pendulum has shifted quite sharply in the Gresini rider’s favour on day one in Australia.

Phillip Island has typically been a good circuit for Marquez over the years, with the eight-time world champion winning three times in the premier class. The anticlockwise layout suits Marquez’s riding style better; that was evident as he gassed up the rear of his GP23 through Stoner corner in unintended homage to the turn’s namesake. Unsurprisingly, he led the sector two split which encompasses Turns 3-6.

The need to just get on with things on a green track amid uncertain conditions is prime Marquez territory. It brought him right out of his shell on the Ducati at Aragon on the low-grip surface that had been freshly laid there, while in the brief rain spell of the San Marino GP it prompted his march into the lead and on to victory.

“Risking a lot” from the off, Marquez looked in control as he led a GP23 1-2-3 ahead of his Gresini team-mate Alex Marquez and VR46’s Marco Bezzecchi. It was an interesting result to see as reports have swelled on the run-up to the Australian GP that Ducati had to revert to an older flywheel configuration on its engine GP23 following Marc Marquez’s Indonesia blow-up.

This is thought to have accentuated the gap in performance between the GP23 and the GP24 seen at the Japanese GP - though Marc Marquez defied it there with a march to the podium in both races at Motegi.

Marquez appeared to be signalling to his crew chief Frankie Carchedi after the session that he was having the rear pushing the front - which is not a new complaint for Ducati riders on the 2024 Michelin rubber, but will definitely be magnified on the new Phillip Island asphalt. But Ducati team manager David Tardozzi believes the pre-existing GP23 data from last year explains why the GP24 was a step behind on Friday.

“Pecco likes to work a lot on the bike and in the beginning with the first bike he was not very happy, so we changed the bike to a different set-up and suspension set-up,” he said.

“So, we found a way and Pecco is there. Pretty happy to see three 2023 [bikes] on top of the grid. I think that it helps a lot the data we have of the 2023 while we don’t have data of the 2024. I think tomorrow the 2024 will be there.”

For Marquez, his recent spate of crashes in Q2 sessions unsurprisingly has stopped him from looking beyond Saturday’s qualifying before determining where he genuinely lies in the pecking order. But if he can keep up what he did on Friday, he’s proven time and time again in 2024 that he is capable of masking the GP23’s disadvantages.

And not a factor in the title battle, he has on his side the fact that Martin and Bagnaia cannot be drawn into any unnecessary scraps. So, while the GP24s will certainly make a leap on Saturday, the main GP23 threat will remain if Marquez can put everything together in qualifying.