Alex Marquez works on Binder, Bagnaia braking style

While Jerez doesn’t have the flip-flop style chicanes of the French track, Marquez was able to focus on stopping his Gresini Ducati into several of the slow Jerez corners.

Specifically, the Spaniard was trying to drift the rear a little to help take some weight off the front, a tactic not only used by KTM’s Brad Binder but Ducati’s title leader Francesco Bagnaia.

“We were struggling in the race with the medium rear tyre so we used those for the test,” said Marquez who was tenth fastest and 0.6s from the test best by VR46’s Marco Bezzecchi, on a new soft tyre.

“We tried some geometry on the front and the bike was turning a little bit better and the pace was not bad. It’s difficult to take conclusions because there's a lot of grip on track, but in general was good.

“We also did some tests for other track layouts with more braking, to try to have more stability on the braking.

“There are three hard brake points. Turn 1, 6 and 13. We were still trying to push and keep the pace, but then later on the data we were trying to analyse the braking area more, how well we stop the bike and go [out of the corner].”

While keeping the wheels in line has been a favoured braking tactic in recent seasons, to exploit rear grip as well as the front, Marquez confirmed that drifting the rear sideways ‘KTM-style’ can be beneficial.

“It's also what Pecco does a little bit - I will say like KTM, but especially Brad has been doing that with all his bikes: Moto3, Moto2, MotoGP,” Marquez said. “So it's a little bit Brad’s style, but also Pecco is doing that to try not to have too much weight on the front.

“So it's where we were focused, to try to take out a little bit of front weight… It's a balance.”

Marquez also worked on improving his feel with the carbon clutch used on the Desmosedici compared to the steel version he had used at Honda.

“Looks like the steel one is like more progressive, carbon one is more easy to make the [bike] jump because it's getting hot,” he said. “We improved it a little bit. We tried something today and at least in these two places in Jerez, I started much better than in Austin.”

Marquez, who took his first Ducati podium in Argentina, is tenth in the world championship heading into round five.