A day of relief for Marc Marquez as he battles to fourth at the end of the Qatar Test, the result offering hope.

The final day of pre-season testing got off to an almost identical start as the night before, Marc Marquez pushing immediately but suffering a crash soon after. This time the Repsol Honda Team rider fell at the final corner, again escaping injury and able to return to the test after a short delay. After the fall Marquez performed a 14 lap run with a solid pace in the mid to low 1’56s with four 1’55 laps. With this in his pocket, the factory rider turned his attention to a fast lap, able to produce a 1’55.402 on his 52nd and final lap of the day. This put the double MotoGP™ World Champion in fourth overall and 0.592s back on Jorge Lorenzo’s (Movistar Yamaha MotoGP) best time.

After several difficult days of testing this result came as a much needed confidence boost for Marquez and his crew. While the situation is not perfect, everyone involved is optimistic that they will be able fight once more in 2016. It will not be long till Marquez and the world see what the 2016 RC213V is capable of, the MotoGP™ World Championship season beginning on the 20th of March in Qatar.

Marc Marquez: “Honestly, I'm very happy today, because we have seen the light at the end of the tunnel. I went back to having a good feeling on the bike, and even though I crashed I know why it happened. We have improved a lot and I want to thank my team for the great work they have done, because they are working very hard; yesterday they finished at 3am, and they were back here at the circuit for 10am today. I am very happy because we have taken a step forward at a track where I have struggled before. We have made some big changes that have allowed me to start gaining confidence, riding at a good pace both behind Jorge [Lorenzo] and alone, even despite the dew on track at the end. It is still not enough, and we need to improve more, but after today I have much more confidence for the race. Yesterday I was worried about our level, because I had no pace or confidence, and today we have taken a big step forward, so I'm happy with the final result of the last preseason test. We have found out a lot of things that have allowed me to ride at a fairly good level."