The historic press conference on April 15, 2021, with Marc Marquez, who has been absent for an incredibly long time, as second from the right. Right from the start, however, the Catalan stressed that he would need time to settle in again. In the beginning he would of course not be able to be “Old Marc”.

From the press conference ahead of the Portugal GP – Marquez stacks deep

Marc Marquez: “I will definitely not be old Marc when I drive my Honda again tomorrow for the first time in 9 months. The point now is to get a good feeling first and to find trust again. Of course, it’s not my first time riding in the rain if it is wet on Friday. But it sure makes my job a lot harder. Watching on TV was incredibly difficult for me, and now it is very important that I can be there again for how long I want. It really is the case that my Honda colleagues, including my brother, had some problems, especially with trust in the Honda front. I have already discussed with the team what is new on the bike. Many things are of course not due to the corona-related development stop, but there were still some improvements this season.”

Marc Marquez continues: “There is no way I can tell what will happen, and I also said to my team that I have no idea what will happen tomorrow Friday. Certainly it would have been ideal to be able to switch on a test day on the factory Honda beforehand, but of course this is not possible. I tried to prepare myself mentally for it, but it was not that easy and basically hardly possible. I had and still have butterflies in my stomach the whole time, and I’m glad I’ll be able to try it for the first time tomorrow Friday. Furthermore, I cannot say whether and how it will go, the strain on a MotoGP bike is unique. It is therefore not possible to predict whether and how well it will go. First I want to try to get a feeling back. Only after the first free practice do we know more and whether it works at all. But in any case, I have no goals at all, and I am very curious to see how it will turn out. However, predictions before the first 45 minutes are unthinkable and pointless.“

Johann Zarco (Pramac Ducati) is very happy that Marc Marquez is back and like his other colleagues he is already excited to see how his comeback will turn out. In any case, the World Cup leader emphasized that it was important that the Catalan is finally back on his bike.

The schedule for the weekend for the Portuguese Grand Prix

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