Marc Marquez battle “a nice problem to have” for Alex Marquez at Thai MotoGP

Alex Marquez and Marc Marquez finished atop the times on Friday at the MotoGP Thai Grand Prix, furthering the humorous rivalry between the two.

Since last year’s Barcelona test, a joke has existed in the Marquez and Gresini camps where whichever rider beats the other will deliver a particular one-fingered gesture to the other.

None were delivered after Alex Marquez beat Marc Marquez to the top spot in Practice in Buriram on Friday (28 February), but the former insisted that, should he beat his older sibling in the Grand Prix then such a gesture could be dug out.

“Sunday? Then, yes,” Gresini Racing’s Marquez said after Practice in Buriram.

“But not one! Four in a row,” he joked.

“It will be a nice problem to have. I think it will be a great show.

“It was a good day, it was double-Marquez leading, but at the end if you see the championship we are all in the same position with zero points, so we need to keep calm. There are many weekends in front of us and many things to improve.

“Qualifying will be important especially here with the heat that we will have tomorrow and even more on Sunday. To be in the front row will be the key for the Sprint but especially for the long race.”

Can Marc Marquez beat Alex Marquez at Thailand MotoGP?

On the side of Marc Marquez, the eight-time World Champion conceded that being beaten in times by his brother is at least preferable to being beaten by someone else.

“Of course, if somebody beats you you are never happy,” he said. “But when it’s your brother, it’s ok.

“Honestly, I’m happy for him. He’s riding in a good way. Already in the pre-season he was riding in a very good way, and I think it will not be the last time that he will beat me this year.

“He’s fast and I expect him to fight for the podium, and why not some victory? It would be super nice.”

The older Marquez added that, while his brother’s speed in preseason testing was impressive, by now it is no longer a surprise.

“The biggest surprise of the pre-season was my brother,” he said. “But it’s not a surprise anymore, because he was fast in Catalunya, he was fast in Malaysia.

“You could say ‘Okay, it was a circuit that he rides well at’. But he was fast here, he was fast again today. So, it’s not anymore a surprise.”

Speed there, but Alex Marquez needs better pace

Although Marquez was happy with his time-topping one-lap speed, he was hoping for gains in terms of consistency before Saturday’s Sprint and Sunday’s Grand Prix.

“It was a good day for the position, honestly speaking, and it’s like it is, but about the feeling it was not the best day – I was struggling in the morning already and also in the afternoon on race pace,” he said.

“It’s true that maybe we were a little bit too optimistic trying a few things to improve our base test bike and it was not working. But we had some doubts after the second day of testing, so [we thought] why not try again on Friday with different conditions, but it wasn’t really working and I feel more confident with my base setup of the tests in Malaysia and [Thailand].

“So, it’s what we will work on tomorrow.

“We have the speed, we need the consistency. We need to improve the race pace.

“Marc [Marquez] is super-fast in that point, and we need to be more close to him, so we have work to do this afternoon trying to see the data from him and try to see in which areas he is able to make more difference.”

He added that the speed was enough to calm him after a confidence-inspiring preseason.

“The preseason gives to you confidence, and to be first on Friday gives to you calm,” he explained.

“Okay, the things that you were [doing] in the test are working, so it gives to you calm, and also confidence.

“We will try tomorrow to not override with this confidence, we need also to pay attention and not relax.

“But starting like this on Friday gives to me calm to keep working, and to know that we are doing the job in the proper way.”

Finally, he explained that the Demosedici GP24 he is riding this year is a bike which encourages the rider to push harder.

“It’s a bike that, when you are pushing more and more, it’s better and better,” he said.

“When you are slower you have more problems, when you are faster it looks like it’s a bike that gives to you more and more confidence – this is something super-great.

“So, I think we have a good base, we need to move a bit less, we will learn from this day, and tomorrow we will try to make another step to be more consistent.”