Repsol rider closes preseason with good feeling, despite having been off his Moto2 bike for almost five months.
The Circuito de Jerez in Spain concluded the 2012 preseason for the Moto2 and Moto3 riders. It was an atypical period for Marc Márquez, who is now confident and calm after completing his recovery from injury and is ready for the upcoming campaign. The Repsol rider was one of the main protagonists of the past three days in the Official Test, where he returned to the sharp end of the timesheets and recorded a best lap of 1’42.430.
Undertaking a shorter day’s work than the two previous runs, Márquez took to the track at 11am local time. Trying out various adjustments to the fork setting of his Moto2 bike, the Repsol rider evaluated the various configurations in order to choose which would be likely to be of use to him for the new season. In the combined session with the Moto3 class he completed 35 laps, stopping the clock at 1’42.430 and claiming fifth on the testing timesheet.
In the exclusive hour for Moto2 participants, Márquez rode another 18 laps and continued to improve. Despite traffic on track, he put down a best lap of 1’42.585 —again the fifth quickest. Putting in a total of 160 laps over the past three days (more than 700km), he rode at a faster pace than the 2011 pole lap and confirmed that he is ready to go when the 2012 season begins on April 8th in Qatar.
Marc Márquez >> Audio
1:42.430, 53 laps, 234 km.
“The overall evaluation of this test is very positive —especially considering the situation that we were in compared to now. I think that we should be very happy with the results from these three days. We have been steadily re-finding our confidence with the bike, because you can’t help but lose that a little after five months out. We started to try out some changes to the configuration and are getting closer to the lead riders, who are still a little ahead of us. In any case, everything went better than I was expecting. The next challenge will be Qatar and logically we won’t be at 100% there in terms of kilometres because we haven’t had the time with the Moto2 bike, but we will have to have patience and make the most of the situation”.
