Marc Marquez says his recovery from the Japanese MotoGP race, his second back since surgery in June, took longer than expected.

Marquez qualified on pole position at Motegi and made a late pass on Miguel Oliveira to finish fourth after 24 laps of racing, following which he said it was the first time in a long time that he had not felt pain.

Wet weather on qualifying day allowed him to conserve energy during a period when he is still far from peak physical fitness, but the Repsol Honda rider still felt the aftereffects.

“It’s true that in the Motegi GP, the weather helped us, in the way that on the Saturday we didn’t stress the body so much,” he said.

“During the week, I took more time than what I expected to recover, because on Monday I felt okay but on Tuesday I got up and my arm was completely stiff.

“It took time but [on Thursday] I started to feel better, so [on Friday] it will not be a problem.”

More rain is forecast for this weekend’s Thailand Grand Prix, practice for which starts at Buriram today.

While that might be helpful for Marquez himself, Honda needs quality track time in order to develop its RC213V, which is far from a competitive motorcycle.

A key consideration is the direction it takes on the swingarm, with the six-time premier class champion continuing to experiment.

“I mean, I raced the full weekend in dry with aluminium, in wet with carbon,” noted Marquez regarding the just-completed Motegi weekend.

“It’s not the best way to work to achieve best results, but it’s how we need to work.

“Here, we will do the same strategy, but in the future, we need to try carbon – a different spec – so still, we haven’t decided.

“I’m here to work for Honda; if we have time, we will try a few things, big things, just to understand the concept for next year.

“It’s not the best way to achieve the best result but I’m here to work for 2023.”