Marc Marquez experienced his first Ducati crash during the final hour of the 2024 MotoGP Qatar pre-season testing.
There were only around twenty minutes left in the two-day Qatar pre-season test when Marquez went down at Turn 4, but emerged from the incident unharmed. Shortly following that, he was spotted chit-chatting with his crew chief Frankie Carchedi in the pit box.
The six-time MotoGP champion was ranking P4 on the timesheet at the time of his crash, and eventually ended in the same position at the conclusion of the day’s proceedings.
It is noteworthy because Marquez is coming off a 2023 season in which he set a personal record for the most crashes ever at—29—in his final season with Honda.
Since moving to Ducati, there is still uncertainty over Marquez’s real potential, but he has overcome the unavoidable challenge of experiencing his first crash.
Marquez was just shy of running for five days of preseason testing—three in Sepang and two in Qatar—without suffering a single Ducati crash.
The Spaniard had to dispel early rumors that he crashed in Sepang as he informed reporters that he had only encountered a technical problem. Earlier on Tuesday, he suffered the same problem with his GP23.
However, Marquez has now actually felt what it’s like to fall off a Ducati, ahead of the race that headlines the 2024 MotoGP season in Qatar on March 8.
The Gresini Racing rider will be convinced that his first crash just signifies that he’s getting closer to uncovering the limit of his new machine. However, he showed excellent racing pace, which he had previously shown in Sepang prior to a late-day tip-off.
“It was on the plan today to increase a bit the risk on the bike and increase the real limit of the bike,” Marquez told MotoGP.com. “Still, in one lap they are a bit faster but I’m happy because we improved our base set-up.
“We improved the time attack and then I was doing a very long race simulation; 20 laps but with the red flag it was about 18, but on lap 12 I crashed because I was trying different things.
“The pace was not bad. It was a complete pre-season. The first crash with the Ducati arrived after six days of testing.”
