After the hostile atmosphe꧑re of Mugello, MotoGP world champi☂onship leader Marc Marquez will be looking to recover from a second non-score of the season at this weekend's home Catalunya round.

The mistake in Italy saw Marquez's title advantage trimmed to a still healthy 23 points over nearest rival Valentino Rossi prior to Barcelona, where riders will fac💃e a new surface and revised penultimate turn relative to last season.

Both modificati♐ons were given the thumbs-up by riders during a recent private test, when Marquez was ranked sixth on the unofficial timesheets, headed by Maverick Vinales (Yamaha).

“I’m very hap♏py anytime we race at home, in front of our fans, and I ho🧜pe to give them an exciting race on Sunday, as that special atmosphere always gives you extra energy," Marquez said.

"We had a good test in Catalunya a few weeks ago, when we a💫lso had the chance to check out the layout, in particular the final section, which has been revised.

"I think they also did a really good j🦩ob with the resurfacing: the tarmac now has very good grip and is very nice to ride on, even if the F1 cars are already starting to affect it by creating bumps at some of the braking points.

"The kerbs are still one of the track’s most challenging aspects; the inside kerbs are very high, and it’s a bit difficult to adapt your riding style to that. That said, it’s a nice tracཧk and we’ll try to make the best of it and fight for the podium again.”

Catalunya will be team-mate Dani Pedrosa's first eꦅvent since the announcement that he will be replaced at Repsol Honda by𒁏 Jorge Lorenzo in 2019.

Pedrosa is yet to announce his own plans - the choice effectively being to retire 𝓀or switch to a sa꧒tellite team - but more should be known of his intentions this weekend.

“The Catalan GP is always a spꦗecial race because all our family, fans, and friends are there," Pedrosa said. "It always has a great atmosphere and a grea🅘t feeling.

"The track itself is very nice, though demanding, e꧙specially for the tyres. You need to work a lot on the suspension and chassis🦋 setup to make sure you have good grip because you’re leaned over most of the time.

"Having partly returned to th꧋e original layout, we've al♓so got back the final two downhill corners, which are really beautiful.”