New chassis, aero, plus 2018 parts on Marquez test agenda

MotoGP champion Marc Marquez mixed the past, present and future of Honda's RC213V during Monday's Catalunya test.

Returning to the home circuit where he celebrated a fourth win of the season on Sunday, the Repsol Honda star had a range of new developments to try.

These included a revised chassis and aerodynamics, but also some parts borrowed from Takaaki Nakagami's 2018 bike.

The Spaniard finished the test with the third best lap time, 0.290s from Maverick Vinales (Yamaha) after 80 laps of the Barcelona track.

"A very good test. We tried a few different things to understand the direction we need to take in the future, and we can say that especially in the afternoon we did another step," Marquez said.

"We worked a little bit for 2020, looking to find the correct direction for the new bike, but also for the second part of this season with the new chassis [and] new aerodynamic things, because we have the chance to homologate another fairing, as well as more work on the 'spoon' or [swingarm] spoiler.

"With aerodynamic things you are looking for less wheelie, but also not to lose top speed. They were very similar to the ones that I have, but in a different way. So basically, I just did two runs to get information, and continued with the standard.

"But it's time to keep improving, because for sure the other manufacturers will improve."

However, having trebled his title advantage to 37-points over Andrea Dovizioso after the Ducati rider was taken down by Jorge Lorenzo on Sunday, Marquez will be 'patient' before making any changes to his current RCV race package.

That's especially the case for something as significant as the chassis.

"Maybe some small parts [will be used at Assen] but the new chassis we still need to understand further. Because when you feel good, when you are winning races, to make a big change… you need to be patient.

"Maybe it's better to retry the chassis at another test. But we will see in Assen. We will arrive there, and maybe we are in a good position and we can try. But we must be patient and try to understand well because always on a Monday test the grip is good and everything works well.

"So we have to pay attention to everything we try."

To help with the decision making, Marquez also took to the track with a fairing and "some parts" from LCR rider Nakagami's year-old Honda, which was not needed by the Japanese since he was trying a 2019 bike on Monday.

"It was some parts from the Nakagami bike, but it was not the full Nakagami bike," Marquez explained.

"HRC did a mix of things to try to understand the direction for the future, and basically one of the parts was with Nakagami's fairing, so we put that on on. It was just to try a different mix of 2018 and 2019 and understand for the future."

Marquez team-mate Lorenzo was 17th quickest after a fast fall in the morning.