Mandalika MotoGP Test: Marquez yet to 'arrive at the limit’

On a day where unpredictable weather clouded MotoGP’ first ever visit to Mandaౠlika, eight-time world champion Marc Marquez finished day-one of testing in 17th position.
Despite heavy rain and an early red-flag that was deployed in order to clean the track, representative lap times began to ♋take shape come the end of the day.
A late flurry of improvements from most of the grid saw Marquez, who was inside the top ten for much of the day, relegated to P17 while team-mate Pol Espar🐓garo went fastest by ⛦over four tenths.
Should track conditi🎉ons continue to improve over the weekend🔴, then a significant imporvement regarding lap times will take place, which in-turn will see Marquez ride closer to the limit, something he chose not to do during today’s running.
Asked where he feels strongest around the new Indonesian circuit, Marquez added: "Well, still I didn’t push enough to arrive 𝕴at the limit. T1 I like it, I really like it. T3 is also a nice sector and also T4.
"T2 I don’t like [laughs], it’s too fast. I mean it's true that you are there and you ju🍒ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚst have to go. But it is really fast and there are still some bumps in the corner. If you take a big risk you can gain a lot of time. But at the moment, we need to keep calm."
Like the Sepang test last weekend, conditi🅘ons proved incredibly humid and energy-sapping, which was especially the case for Marquez who remains close, but not yet🐟 at 100% full fitness.
The Spaniard's reduced workload in the afternoon despite track cond🅠itions getting better was about ‘surviving’ the next two days.
"I started the day with energy, I did many laps, many laps in a row to try and understand the track, the lines," said the Repsol Honda rider.&🍬🌸nbsp;
"B✅ut then already in the afternoon I said to the team, ‘let's coolꦇ down and breath a little bit more in the box’.
"In the afternoon the track was in a better way. We started to ride less but try bigger things because I 🌼need to survive tomorrow and Sunday."