Magnificent Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda RC213V) will this weekend travel 100 kilometres (60 miles) from his ancient hometown of Cervera with the aim of continuing his astonishing run of successes, this time in his home Grand Prix at Circuit of Catalunya. Alongside the reigning World Champion in the Repsol Honda garage will be team-mate Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda RC213V) who is even more of a local, hailing from Saba-dell, just 20 kilometres (12 miles) from Montmelò, as locals prefer to call the track.

Indeed from a rider’s point of view, the Catalan Grand Prix is cur-rently MotoGP’s home event, because all three World Champi-ons – Marquez, Moto2 champ Pol Espargaro and Moto3 champ Maverick Vinales – are born-and-bred Catalans.

So far 21-year-old Marquez has made the 2014 MotoGP season all his own, with a full house of six pole positions and six race victories to give him a perfect score of 150 points and a champi-onship lead of 53 points. He has shown his talent and his ma-turity by winning races in every possible way: by running away out front, by stalking his rival and then moving ahead and by fighting with his rivals all the way to the chequered flag.

He had to use the last of those tactics to win a fortnight ago at Mugello, where he spent the final few laps battling back and forth with arch-rival Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha). Marquez loves a racetrack tussle and enjoyed the duel, during which the pair of them pulled off some astonishing passes around the high-speed Italian venue. Finally, Marquez prevailed, proving that he’s not happy about finishing second even when he already enjoys a major championship advantage.

Marquez will commence practice on Friday quietly confident that he can have another great Grand Prix, but always aware that a time may come when circumstances prevent him from continuing his winning streak. So far, only one man has managed to win every race of the season in the premier-class: Italian Giacomo Agostini, who went unbeaten in 1968.

Last year at Catalunya, Marquez scored one of the lesser results of his remarkable rookie MotoGP season, during which he only finished off the podium in two races at Mugello and Phillip Is-land. He ended the 2013 Catalan GP a close third, behind winner Lorenzo and team-mate Pedrosa. Marquez scored his only GP win at the track in 2010, while on his way to that year’s 125 world title. In Moto2 he finished second in 2011 and third in 2012.

Pedrosa can look back at an impressive run of results at Catalu-nya over the past decade, with victories across all three classes. He won the MotoGP race at the Barcelona venue in 2008, the 250 race in 2005 and the 125 race in 2003. This year he will go all out for his first win of the season – and his 26th in the class – after struggling at the last few races due to arm pump. A post-Le Mans operation should have fixed the problem but the former 125 and 250 World Champion still suffered at Mugello, though his surgeon has assured him he will be in better shape this weekend.

Stefan Bradl (LCR Honda RC213V) will be hoping for better luck this weekend after a traumatic race day at Mugello where he suf-fered two huge crashes, one in warm-up and the other in the race, when a rival fell immediately in front of him, the fallen ma-chine skittling the German. The 2011 Moto2 World Champion has already shown impressive speed this year – taking fourth in Texas and fifth in Argentina – and was aiming to get back on track in Italy after difficult races in Spain and France.

Alvaro Bautista (Team GO&FUN Honda Gresini RC213V) is an-other member of the huge local contingent at Catalunya, who will be out to give his fans the best possible result on Sunday. Despite a challenging weekend at Mugello, not one of his fa-vourite tracks, Bautista has been pushing forward in recent weeks following a difficult start to the season. At Le Mans he scored his first podium of the year and he will be anxious to get back into the top three at Montmelò, where he’s already won two GPs, one in both the 250 class and in 125s.

The four riders who run Honda’s lower-cost production RCV1000R – which doesn’t feature the pneumatic valve springs and slick-shifter gearbox of the factory bikes – will be working hard at Catalunya to continue improving their machines which have already proved capable of top-ten finishes.

Drive 7 Aspar Honda team-mates Nicky Hayden (Drive 7 Aspar Honda RCV1000R) and Hiroshi Aoyama (Drive 7 Aspar Honda RCV1000R) are currently the best-placed RCV1000R riders, with 23 points apiece. Hayden has so far been the standout perform-er on the bike, with three consecutive 11th-place finishes in Tex-as, Argentina and Spain. He has been less lucky since. At Le Mans he was knocked off by a rival on the first lap and he was forced out of Mugello by a troublesome right-wrist injury. The 2006 MotoGP World Champion hopes that subsequent surgery has fixed the problem, though he won’t know until Friday prac-tice whether the wrist will be strong enough to race.

Former 250 World Champion Aoyama has scored points at all races so far, including a best of tenth at April’s Argentine Grand Prix, where he beat Hayden in a thrilling dash to the finish line.

MotoGP rookie Scott Redding (Team GO&FUN Honda Gresini RCV1000R) is only two points behind the American and Japa-nese, with a string of impressive results, including the best-yet seventh-place finish by an RCV1000R rider, at the season-opening Qatar Grand Prix.

Karel Abraham (Cardion AB Motoracing Honda RCV1000R) has also been going well on his RCV1000R recently, despite a diffi-cult start to the year caused by a lingering shoulder injury.

Catalunya is a challenging MotoGP venue. Like Mugello, the track has a long start-finish straight followed by technical sec-tions of both fast and slow corners, elevation changes, and a dramatic conclusion to the lap. With eight right-hand corners, many of which are long and fast, and five slower left-handers, the track uses the left and right sides of tyres very differently.

Riders and their engineers will spend their Friday and Saturday practice searching for a good all-around package: stability under hard braking, the ability to hold a line through the long cor-ners and acceleration off the slower corners.

Two weeks after Sunday’s seventh round of the World Champi-onships, the MotoGP circus will be back in action at Assen, the oldest World Championship venue of them all.



Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda, says:

“I really enjoyed the battle in Mugello with Jorge, it was so nice! Now we head home to Montmelò which is a track that I haven’t enjoyed myself at so much in the past but the layout is good and with a year’s experience I hope the situation will be different this year! The fans and of course my fan club all make the journey to come and support us and this gives me extra motivation, so I hope we can put on a good show for them all!”

Dani Pedrosa, Repsol Honda, says:

“Mugello was more difficult than I expected and my arm still wasn’t 100 per cent. I had a check-up with Dr. Mir after the race who confirmed everything is healing correctly, so I hope this weekend it will have improved and I can be in the battle at the front. As always, I’m looking forward to going to Montmelò. The track is nice but the atmosphere is amazing! We will have to work hard. I hope that the bike works well there because you spend a lot of time on the edge of the tyre, so a great setup is a huge advantage. Let’s hope the weather is nice and it’s a good weekend!”

Stefan Bradl, LCR Honda MotoGP, says:

“First of all I feel much better now. Those two crashes on Sun-day at Mugello unsettled me for a couple of days. I am ready to be back on track because our defeat at Mugello, although invol-untary, was hard to take. Montmelò is another exciting track with warm fans and the weather should be very good for the whole weekend. Last year I qualified 10th but ended the race with a pos-itive 5th place. My Spanish colleagues like Dani, Marc and Jorge will be very competitive in front of their home crowd but for me it’s time to race back in the front as I did at the beginning of the season.”

Alvaro Bautista, Team GO&FUN Honda Gresini, says:

“In Montmelò I’ve always been strong and this is a track that I really like. In addition, racing in Spain always gives me an extra motivation. We will start the weekend making a comparison between two important suspension solutions provided by Showa, to quickly identify the best direction to take. The new front fork worked very well at Le Mans, while at Mugello we preferred to race with the old solution. We must therefore determine which one is best suited to this track, which is fast and in some ways similar to Mugello.”

Nicky Hayden, Drive 7 Aspar Honda, says:

“I am happy to say that my hand is feeling better than it did at Mugello, before the surgery, but it’s only been seven days since the operation so it’s still a bit too early to say how I will be in Barcelona. After resting it for a few days following surgery I started rehabbing it, but I really have to wait a few more days to know my level and if it’s possible to go this weekend. I think I will try in FP1, see how I feel and discuss it with my team and doc-tors to know if we can do the race. For sure I would hate to miss another race after two no-scores, but also we have to be smart and think long term and make a decision with both our heart and head. So we wait and see, hope for the best. This track is fast and challenging with a bit of everything, and a lot of long cor-ners with a lot of lean angle where if we can make the soft tyre last it could help us to be more competitive with the extra edge grip.”

Hiroshi Aoyama, Drive 7 Aspar Honda, says:

‘‘I have lived in Barcelona for a few years now so Catalunya is like a second home Grand Prix for me. I know the track perfectly and it’s always a pleasure to ride at this circuit. Last year I missed out because of injury so I am looking forward to it even more this time and I hope it can be a good race for me. Even though we still have a lot of work to do we are improving our feeling with this bike every weekend and hopefully my track knowledge here can help us make quick progress with the set-up.”

Scott Redding, Team GO&FUN Honda Gresini, says:

“Barcelona is not one of my favourite circuits, but with this bike it could be different. We will face again another challenge: an-other new circuit to learn on a MotoGP bike, so for sure we will have to work hard, but I think we have a good base setting now, so hopefully we can try again to be the top Honda production racer. The two long straights will cost us a lot of time. It’s a bit frustrating because you put in so much effort just to see other guys get past you in the straight. However, we need to stay strong and just keep doing what we do.”

Karel Abraham, Cardion AB Motoracing, says:

“We had a great weekend at Mugello and we hope we can have another one this weekend. We are making real progress with the bike, so much so that I could battle with the other Honda Open bikes two weeks ago and finish the race as top Honda Open bike for the first time. This will be out goal again this Sunday. We will work hard from the start and focus on getting the best life out of the tyres, because this will be a big issue in the hot condi-tions.”

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