Hardly two days after authoritatively taking his fourth consecutive win in the World Championships and at such a special meeting as the Catalunya Grand Prix, Marc Márquez has passed his first test at the new track with flying colours. The Repsol rider travelled to the Motorland Aragón circuit to complete two days of testing – which will be the venue for the thirteenth event of the season, on the 19th September – and finished the first day setting the best time.
Minutes before ten in the morning, Marc Márquez took to the track. With a temperature of 22 ºC and the asphalt at 30 ºC, the Repsol rider began to ride his first ever laps of the circuit which has been added to the championship calendar this season. As Márquez was memorising its secrets, the air temperature started to rise to 30 ºC – 51 ºC on the asphalt- until half past four in the afternoon, when today’s session was scheduled to finish.
The Repsol rider ran twenty laps to begin memorising the turns and, from then on, began to increase the pace and make adjustments to the set up of his Derbi RSA for the features of the Aragon track. As a result of all the hard work carried out this season with the team, captained by Aki Ajo, the Repsol rider felt immediately comfortable on the windy Alcañiz circuit and set the best time both in the morning session and after lunch. Having ridden more than 320 kilometres, Márquez finished the day with a best time of 1 minute, 59 seconds and 544 milliseconds, happy with a very positive first outing.
Tomorrow will be the second test day followed by a well-deserved week of rest before the start German Grand Prix.
Marc Márquez, 1’59.544 sec., 63 laps, 320 km. >> Audio
“I’m very happy with how it went today, more than for the time we set, to have been able to get to know the track and start to try things which may be useful in the future if a problem arises at one of the circuits. I thought the track was fun. I wouldn’t compare it with any other, although there are gradient changes like circuits such as Mugello or Donington Park. On paper it seemed like a fast circuit but, once on the bike, we saw that there are some quite slow turns where there’s a lot of braking. I felt comfortable from the start. The first twenty laps were to get to know the circuit and, once I started to clock up some good times, we tried out a few different adjustments to get adapted”.
