MotoGP championship leader Marc Marquez says, while Honda's performance at Le Mans this year is better, he is still “suffering” despite missing pole by just over a tenth of a second.
Marquez has crashed out of the last two French Grands Prix, with the Le Mans circuit typically working against previous Honda's due to its over-aggressive engine.
However, Honda's new engine has allowed the Spaniard to be more competitive, ending Friday's running second having set his best lap on used hard rubber, while missing pole by just 0.107 seconds to Tech3's Johann Zarco.
Despite making “a huge improvement from last year”, Marquez admits the Honda is not working as well as it has this year, and says the fact that factory stablemates Dani Pedrosa and Cal Crutchlow had to go through Q1 after they qualified on the front row at Jerez is proof of this.
“Like we see today, we did a huge improvement from last year and we are better,” he said.
“But we are not like in the other race tracks. You only have to see that the other Hondas were in QP1.
“They are struggling, and in Jerez the three Hondas were in the two front rows. But it's always like this, some circuits you have some up and down, but the most important is when you suffer you try to take the best.
“Even I'm suffering more than on other circuits, I'm there fighting for the pole position, fighting for the best rhythm, and this is the most important.
“But for tomorrow I need to understand if Johann… for some reason [Andrea] Dovizioso is not here [in the top three], but is one of the fastest ones, I need to understand [their pace], finish on the podium and we arrive at some circuits in a better way for us.”
Marquez spent all of Friday running the standard aluminium swingarm, having raced the carbon fibre version in Texas and at Jerez.
Switching to it for Saturday, the Honda rider admits its effect is much less noticeable than, and is unsure if he will race with it.
“On this circuit I don't feel a big difference,” he said.
“Maybe on other circuits, like Jerez, with more corner speed, I feel more the difference. Here I don't feel much difference.
“But it looks like the way to manage the tyres and all these things are in a different way.
“But during the weekend I was fast with the aluminium swingarm, so still we need to decide this afternoon which one we will use for tomorrow.”
