“Sunday will be a different story”

Despite trailing his brother Marc Marquez home for a third successive race in Saturday’s MotoGP sprint, Alex Marquez does not believe the Argentina Grand Prix on Sunday necessarily has to follow the same script.

The Gresini Racing Ducati rider maintains his factory Ducati sibling had to work harder for the sprint victory at Termas de Rio Hondo than he did for his two wins at the season-opener in Thailand.

While suspicions were raised after Marc Marquez eased off to drop behind his brother in order to preserve his tyre pressure in Thailand, only to ease to victory, Alex has maintained all weekend in Argentina that he is now closer to Marc in terms of true performance.

He stuck to that line following his second place in the sprint, and does not believe he is automatically condemned to follow his brother home once more on Sunday.

“I think it will be a different story tomorrow,” Alex Marquez said. “I don’t think it will change your race very much whether you go to the soft or the medium rear tyre, so it’s about changing your approach to the race and the points at which you can attack.

“Now after the sprint we have more information and it will be a bit clearer what we need to try tomorrow morning.”

Although Marc led all the way from pole position and set fastest lap, the 0.903s margin of victory was as big a lead as he had all race. While it was an opportunity for Alex to watch Marc’s methods closely, it also gave him hope for the grand prix.

“It’s nice to be this close, like a constant masterclass over 12 laps,” said Alex after the race. “Every corner, you’re learning something new from him.

“But I saw he was more on the limit compared to Thailand. Because in Thailand, when he overtook us, it was like ‘ciao!’ But here he was more on the limit and suffering a little bit more.”

Despite the optimism, Alex admitted that he had lost to the better rider on Saturday.

“I was not at any moment close enough to be able to attack him…he was fast into Turn 2 and Turn 5 but I was recovering into Turn 3 and Turn 6,” Alex added.

“Later on, he was slightly faster in Turn 7 and Turn 8. So it was not enough. The pace was too high to try to overtake him, and he didn’t make any big mistake.”