Marc Marquez hails “perfect Saturday”, warns “still has some margin” for Thai MotoGP
Factory Ducati rider made winning start to new season on Saturday
Marc Marquez branded his sprint win and pole at the 2025 MotoGP Thai Grand Prix as the “perfect Saturday”, but warns that he has “some margin” still to explore on the Ducati.
The eight-time grand prix world champion topped qualifying and led every lap of Saturday’s sprint at Buriram, which put him at the top of the championship standings for the first time since November 2019.
Marquez beat his younger brother Alex Marquez by 1.185s and was 3.423s clear of factory team-mate Francesco Bagnaia.
While Marquez was aware of the expectations for him to perform on his factory Ducati debut, he admits “something arrived” in terms of pressure ahead of the 13-lap sprint.
“Yeah, of course, today was an important day because expectations were high,” he began.
“And I tried to use the experience and don’t feel those expectations.
“But in the end, something arrived. We did a perfect Saturday, a solid Saturday, pole position, sprint race victory.
“Plus, my brother finished second. So, I’m even happier.
“But it’s the first Saturday of the year, it’s only a Saturday. Sport can change one day from the other. So, I’m happy but not super happy because I know tomorrow is the important day.”
When it was put to him that it looked like he still had something in reserve, Marquez noted that “in two, three braking points I had some margin” to push.
“It depends, because sometimes if you push at 100% you do mistakes,” he said.
“But I tried to manage the distance between me and the second rider.
“What I understood from all these years being here in MotoGP, it doesn’t matter if you win by one second or three seconds.
“So, today I tried to manage that gap, try to understand what we need tomorrow for the race.
“In two, three brake points I had some margin but maybe if I used that margin maybe you never know. But today I ride comfortably, so this is the most important thing.”
Highlighting an area where he needs to find the most improvement for Sunday’s grand prix, Marquez says the third sector is somewhere he needs “to take a little bit more risk” in.
“Find the same feeling,” Marquez replied when asked what he needs for Sunday.
“I want to find the same feeling. It’s true I need to improve a bit that sector three.
“It’s maybe where I can find… I know where I lose the tenth, but I need to take a little bit more risk.
“I did some laps in the practice about the T3. About the rest, fine. The same feeling will be… maybe tomorrow someone will go out and be faster, like we saw today with [Ai] Ogura.
“You never know in MotoGP. But if it’s like this we will understand and it’s important to finish the race.”
Quotes provided by Crash MotoGP Editor Peter McLaren
