Thailand race winner Marc Marquez says Honda will have to “improve two, three areas” of the bike if he is to have a chance of securing the 2018 world championship next time out in Japan.
Marquez extended his lead in the standing to 77 point after beating Ducati's Andrea Dovizioso to victory in a thrilling Thailand Grand Prix by just 0.115s.
With just 100 points up for grabs in the remaining four races, Marquez heads to Honda's home round at Motegi in two weeks in need of just two more points than Dovizioso to wrap up his fifth MotoGP title.
But Marquez believes Honda will need to improve in certain areas relative to Ducati, who he thinks will be “very strong” at Motegi, if wants to win the title in Japan.
“I feel within the Japanese staff all weekend they had a special motivation to have the first match point in front of our big boss,” Marquez said following his seventh win of the year.
“So I was pushing a lot, they were pushing a lot the whole weekend. But if we want to have a chance to win the championship in Motegi, we need to improve two, three areas because Ducati there will be very strong.
“I was behind Dovi for a lot of laps here, and I saw that [there were] a few points where he was very strong.
“So if we want to beat him at Motegi we must improve those points to be faster, because if not it will not be possible.”
Expanding on what changes need to be made to his bike, Marquez identified acceleration as his key issue in Thailand, admitting the Honda's electronics set-up “was not working in the best way”.
“It's easy to see, I mean all weekend I was losing two tenths in T1 [Sector 1].
“In T1 means acceleration from last corner and acceleration from first corner. In these two acceleration [zones] we were losing too much against Ducati, but also against Yamaha.
“We were losing in a few strange things, and we must improve there because for some reason electronic-side was not working here in the best way.
“But in the race we changed the set-up, we go out with a set-up we didn't know exactly and we were able to improve, was working better, but still we need to improve because it's what I say, still I don't feel the acceleration I want.
“Yesterday we were working… I was until 9pm in the box, then I go to dinner because it was important to relax.
“But they [the team] were here until I think 10:30pm more or less because they were working a lot.
“I had a few troubles that we didn't understand, and we go out on the race with different electronic things because we were struggling in a few areas where normally all weekend we never have a problem. But for some reason here yes.”
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