How Alex Marquez made late 2024 MotoGP gains
Gresini rider explains improved GP23 form late in 2024 season
Alex Marquez says his brace of top five results in the final rounds of the 2024 MotoGP season were down to his Gresini squad reverting to pre-season testing settings.
The 28-year-old was tipped to have a strong 2024 campaign have enjoyed occasional podium success in 2023 in his first season on the Ducati having switched from Honda.
Marquez also managed two sprint wins in 2023, but the GP23 he jumped onto for last season proved less competitive and harder to adapt to.
It took Marquez until the German GP to get his first - and only - podium of the season, though he would manage back-to-back fourth-place finishes in Malaysia and Barcelona at the end of the year.
Rather than this being track specific form, Marquez believes reverting to the base set-up he had in pre-season testing allowed him to get closer to the potential of the GP23.
“We came back a little bit to the base that we had in the pre-season in Malaysia and it’s the bike that I feel better on,” he said at the end of the 2024 season.
“Comparing to last year, I was not able to use a bike with a lot of weight on the rear, because the ’22 bike was a little bit on the opposite side.
“So, I was not able to understand the front in the beginning of the season.
“But, step by step we did better things and I was able to extract, maybe not the maximum, but a good potential out of the bike.”
Marquez ended up second-best GP23 in eighth in the standings behind his brother Marc Marquez, who was third.
The younger Marquez brother remains with Gresini for the 2025 campaign and will inherit a GP24, which proved to be a significant step forward from the GP23.
He will be joined by rookie Fermin Aldeguer at the Ducati satellite team next year.
