The home straight of the 2010 Motorcycle World Championships has now begun with the first free practices of the Valencian Grand Prix, the last point-scoring event of the season. At the Ricardo Tormo Circuit, Marc Márquez faces the most important weekend of his sporting life with caution and, alongside his team, is preparing thoroughly for the race this Sunday in which the Repsol rider could be proclaimed 125cc World Champion.
Despite being an important weekend, Márquez and his team are sticking with their usual work schedule both on and off the track. This morning, the first outing at the Valencian track was positive and, despite the low morning temperatures which called for caution particularly on the right-hand turns, the Repsol rider completed 16 laps, setting the second best time, just 31 milliseconds off the fastest time set by Efrén Vazquez.
The Repsol rider focused his work on the set-up of the suspension of his bike, a job that continued into the second session, making adjustments to both the front fork and the rear shock absorber. He carried out a further 17 laps keeping up a good pace in which his best time was 1 minute, 40 seconds and 219 milliseconds, one tenth off Bradley Smith, the rider who topped the timesheets to finish the day.
Marc Márquez, 1’40.219 sec, 33 laps, 132 km. >> Audio
“The truth is that we were hoping for a free practice day like this with normal weather that allowed us to train without any problems and, at the moment we are happy with both how the day went and our performance. We had a good pace and I felt very comfortable on the bike. Now we just need tomorrow to finish fine-tuning the set up of the bike for the race because maybe the adjustments are still not the best. We are happy with our performance and going from here, tomorrow we’ll see how we perform and if we can continue in this way because the times will probably get lower and we also think we can improve quite a lot. I’m not too nervous although it’s true that when you stop to think about the situation, you do feel some nerves”.
