Frankie Carchedi is convinced. Marc Marquez will excel in riding for Ducati Lenovo. Although he decided not to follow him and is remaining loyal to Gresini Racing, the British crew chief has made no secret of the fact that he has high expectations of his former rider's future performance.
Without giving too much away, during a podcast with the Crashnet website, he said:
"I don't want to say much, but I know exactly what's going to happen.It will be his second year with this bike, which has been updated, and he already collected twenty podiums in 2024."
An astounding result in itself, when you consider that Marco Bezzecchi and Alex Marquez, both with the same GP23, have only once each finished in the top three.
While questions have often been raised about the performance difference between the 2023 bike and the GP24, the Brit preferred to deflect the topic.
"Our direct comparison has always been with the GP23s and the goal to be the best. That's what he did, even when he was at Honda.
It's impossible to make a comparison with other manufacturers or different bikes of the same brand. But finishing ahead of Bastiani and Morbidelli on the GP24 was incredible.
Ducati engineers are incredible. When you think you can't improve, they can."
Making a broad analysis, he then argued: "All bikes have merits and flaws. In some areas, we failed, for example, on the single lap But, maybe, it was due to experience.
For Marc, it was his first time on the Desmosedici, while the others were already in their fourth or fifth season. In any case, he always managed to position himself quite well in qualifying.
He got two poles and even finished third in the qualifying championship, which surprised me. Overal,l every year is different. Sometines, the gap is reduced to a few tenths.
I think the best person to ask is Alex, who seems to have enjoyed the GP24 in the Barcelona test."
Finally, the question about Jorge Martin and his chances of repeating with the Aprila was inevitable.
"You don't win a title for nothing, so I think it won't be far and, anyway, it's great for the MotoGP to have a top rider with a different manufacturer.
We all want more competition since it reshuffles the cards. Bastianini with the KTM is great," he concluded.
