The Curious Case Of Marc Marquez' Preheated Front Tire In Qatar
Submitted by David Emmett on
After the first MotoGP race of 2022, the Qatar Grand Prix was over, an observant Twitter follower asked me why the symbol used for Marc Marquez' front tire choice was different to everyone else. Watching the replay and then consulting the analysis PDFs on MotoGP's new results section made clear what Marquez had done. He and his team and chosen to fit a soft front tire which had been scrubbed in, and consequently, had been used for 1 lap already.
Running through the data in the various sessions confirms this. During the heat of FP1, Marquez used a medium and a hard front, before using two soft fronts during FP2. He used a third soft front in FP3, before switching to a hard front. He did a single, slow lap on the soft front at the start of the session, then came in to switch front tires.