MotoGP, Bezzecchi: “The shakedown's done, it’s incredible to reach certain speeds”

It’s not exactly the first day of school for Marco Bezzecchi, but the first day of testing at Sepang always has a special flavour, particularly for a rookie with the VR46 ‘riding school’.

“Overall, we’ve had a good first day – says Marco – in that I felt comfortable in the saddle. I was reaching incredible speeds along the straight, around 330 km/h, but it’s a little less impressive than Jerez, where everything was new and the track narrower. I didn’t complete so many laps, because I want to save my energy for the next days, particularly the official test days involving all the riders”.

The physical aspect is crucial in Malaysia, but it appears that the Italian is taking the right approach.

“I felt good physically, so it seems that I've been doing the right work over the winter, although this is only day one and I didn’t lap so much. Me and the team wanted to complete a shakedown today, without pushing too hard, but it’s definitely tiring as you need a lot of strength to ride this bike. But it hasn’t been too bad.”

Bezzecchi: “Important to work on the riding position”

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As for the work completed, Marco is focusing on his riding position, something that has kept various Ducati riders in check in the past.

“I’ve tried a few things that we didn’t have time for at Jerez, with positive results. I've worked a lot on the riding position, very important on the Ducati and something Luca suggested. Ducati highlighted this too, so it was important to do that. Tomorrow I’ll work on the tyres, and other things too no doubt”.

There’s a lot for the Italian to learn, starting with the work method employed in the MotoGP garages.

“Having two bikes is strange, but generally speaking there’s a lot more work to do, and a lot more data to check. The basic work is the same, but it’s all taken to an extreme in MotoGP which means it’s more complicated, but the atmosphere in the garage is good. Of course there was none of the stress of a practice or qualifying session today, but we’ll need to be good at managing that too”.

Lastly, Bez explains why he’s chosen the name Marianna (and mariAnna) for his two GP21 bikes and why he’s not looking at other riders’ results right now.

“I’ve chosen the name Marianna for my bikes because it’s a compound name, I didn’t want two different names as that would be like having two girlfriends, which is weird, so I chose this name together with my girlfriend. Making comparisons with other riders? I think it’s too soon to compare my performance with that of the other rookies. For now, I think it’s important to move forward with my work programme, we’ll leave the comparisons for later”.

Translated by Heather Watson

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