Once again, Honda’s results have been condi😼tioned by an injury for Marc Marquez, although another dose of the eight-time world champion’s COTA magic would have ensured aꦗ podium - at least - without the start line technical issue.

But a week later in Portimao it was back to reality with Marquez, brother Alex (LCR Honda) and Pol Espargaro fighting tooth and nail over sixth place, 16-secon🏅ds behind😼 race winner Fabio Quartararo.

“I know everybody exp🍸ected mor𝄹e but as I already said, we are not ready to fight for the victory,” Marc Marquez said afterwards.

“One lap [in qualifying] is one lap, but the feeling was not good. For the race, we made a small change on the bike that helped me, but it was not𝕴 enough.

• 💧Keith Huewen: Fabio Quartararo is the Marc Marquez💙 of Yamaha
• ‘I impressed myself’ - how did Quartararo sꦐwap distant defeat for runaway win? 
• Keith H💃uewen: 'Really suꦫrprised' no penalty for Jack Miller, Joan Mir incident

“From the 🔴first laps I was riding uncomfortably… the speed was not ther🐽e.

“We fin♌ished 16 seconds behind the leader. You can put 3-4 seconds down to the first laps, but after that I didn’t h♎ave the speed to recover positions.

“It’s not the position we would like to finish, but it was like this. Now  we 🌠go to Jerez and try to do another step.”

While the new RCV was highly competitive during pre-season⭕ testing at Sepang and Mandalika, then the Qatar season opener, Marquez was wary of how the bike would respond to different grip levels:

“I𓄧t’s true that some Honda riders said ‘yeah, it’s an amazing bike’ but I said ‘be careful because the pre-season has a lot of rubber on the track and then we will have d𝓀ifferent conditions for the races’.

“We need to check how Jerez is, then we have an important [Monday] test also. We need to do some steps obviously if we are going to fight for the top positions. Because 5th💎-6th, some podiums, is not the way to fight for the championship.”

Pol Espargaro: ‘New bike was working perfectly in Qatar and pre-season’

Putting aside the special rear tyre construction at Mandalika, Espargaro, who revelled in the increased rear🌞 grip of the radically new bike in winter testing, is at a loss to explain why the performance has changed so much.

“The race was bad, the rhythm was slow and the problem is that I don’t see anothe🤪r Honda wit🧸h a better feeling than my one,” Espargaro said in Portimao. “It’s not that we have done a bad race and there is another [Honda] fighting to win.

“Alex and Marc have been a little 🌺bit faster at the beginning, I’ve been a little bit faster at the end, but the result is exactly the same. It’s💮 bad.”

Espargaro added: “We are missing what we had in the pre-season. It’s difficult to understand because w💖e don’t stop the bike in the correct place with the rear brake. And then we are leaning too much, opening the throttle and spinning too much🦩 on the edge.”

While Marc Marquez joined the rest of the field in using the medium rear tyre, Espargaro and 𝔍Alex Marquez picked the hard.

“We chose the hard because it feels bettꦰer for us in acceleration, in traction, but Marc tried the medium and it was the same, bad [result],” Espargaro said.

“It’s like we are always choosing [either] side grip or acceleration with drive grip, and at the end o🌱f the day the [others] have both.

“It's difficult to understand because the bike we are using now is the biꦺke that was working perfectly in Qatar and the pre-season,” Espargaro added. “This is the problem; we have not made any big change on the bike [to caus༒e these problems].

“In the pre-season we were 🧸the fastest over one lap, but also we were the fastest in rhyt🍬hm, by far. So we didn’t change the bike because the bike was amazing. We just added some things, small details, that are not producing this big change and now we are suffering.

“Okay, I was a bit faster than Marc in the pre-season, so he ne💎eded to adapt a little the style to this new bike, but he was fast as well. He was not the Marc we have seen [finishing +16s in Portimao on Sunday].

“So even Marꦛc is having problems now. It’s not that Marc’s going in one direction or Alex in another. We are more-or-less with the same bikes, same sizes, and I think the result of [Portimao] is about that🐲. We are more-or-less the same, everyone.

“All the riders were agreed, the feelings of ev🌌eryone were good [in the pre-season] apart from some small problems in the front, but nobody was complaining about the rear. Now we have serious problems and we don’t know how to solve them.

“Now it’s time for unity, everyone working in one line togetꦰher to try to g꧑et a better result in Jerez and then in the test try different things to pick us up a little.”

An ‘enigma’ machine

Quizzed on Marquez’s theory that the problem꧋ could be linked to changing grip levels since winter testing, Espargaro replied:

“It can be, sure, [but] in the pre-season we’ve been in places where we normally str🍌uggle with grip. In hot conditions where the track is over 50 degrees. Indonesia and Malaysia, you found very low grip, but you were able to generate a lot of grip. That grip is not there anymore.

“M♍arc started in Malaysia with the old [2021 bike] and he jumped to thౠe new one and for him clearly the new one was much better. Much faster. So he chose this bike as well as us, as a very fast bike and good grip, apart from as I said small issues with the front because we were generating a lot of [rear] grip. The rest was fine, was very good.

“The thing is now that the grip is low we shou🍎ld be better than the others because when we were in the lowest grip places we were better than the others [in testing] so why don’t we🐻 keep like that?

“This is an enigma that we a🍸re trying to figure out and hop🌱efully Jerez we get some answers.”

Alex Marquez: We take too much time to turn, geometry changes for Jerez

Seventh place at Portimao may have been Alex Marquez’s best result of the season ꦑbut he echoed the concerns of Espargaro and older 🌞brother Marc.

“In the end it’s P7 but it’s 16 seconds from the front guy, so it’s a lot for this track,” Alex said. “We need to improve. I’m really happy with the overall performance this weekend, but again when everythi🔯ng is fit and the conditions are really dry we suffer.”

Like Marc and LCR team-mate Takaaki Nakagami, Alex🍷's main concern is the front of the bike.

“We are still havin𒊎g many problems with the front. We take too much time to turn the bike,” said the #73. “We cannot pick up the bike because we are not ab♛le to turn with [quickly] and it’s there where we miss more.

“When we pick up the bike it’s too late and we suffer I think in the grip side a little bit bꦓut it’s because we are not turning enough.

“So we have a good grip performance, just we need to improv🌠e with the front.”

Alex Marquez haꦑd bee💃n planning to try some extreme geometry settings during practice at Portimao, but the poor weather means they have been pushed over to Jerez.

“We need💜 to see if [the front issues] are ওcoming from the weight distribution or just the chassis side is where we need to improve, with a different geometry or different things in the chassis.

“[In Portimao] we had on the plan to try many things about the geometry, to see the direction to follow, but we had bad weather. So in Jerez it will be important especially 𝄹the Monday test, to try things and see which way we need to follow and in which way Honda needs to work.”

Despite missing two of the five races, and finishing no higher than fifth in the others, Marc Marquez is now the top Honda in the world championsh🌄ip 🌱standings, in eleventh place.

Pol Esparga𒉰ro is one point behind, with Alex Marquez in 17th and Takaaki Nakagami (who crashe🐈d out in Portimao) 18th.