World Championship leader dominates opening practice sessions at Valencian GP. Dani Pedrosa places second, 66 thousandths of a second behind.
Far from taking things easy, Marc Marquez showed just why he comes into the final round of the MotoGP World Championship season as series leader. The rookie, who can take the title this weekend, was fast from the word ‘go,’ leading the first two practice sessions for the Valencian GP. Repsol Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa was second, 66 thousandths of a second back.
From the start, Marquez showed that he is going to leave nothing to chance this weekend, and is clear that the best way to seal a World Championship is with a victory. The margin was small –just 18 thousandths of a second– but he placed ahead of rival Jorge Lorenzo in the opening practice session and 24 thousandths ahead of Pedrosa. In the second run, the difference was increased to 0.066s over his teammate and 0.158 over his fellow title contender.
Tomorrow’s second day of practice features the last qualifying session of the year, to decide the grid for the season finale.
Dani Pedrosa >> Audio
FP1 – 1:31.581, 18 laps, 72 km.
FP2 – 1:31.286, 22 laps, 88 km.
“Today we were able to work with the soft and hard compound tyres, but the track conditions weren’t ideal and the bike was sliding a lot. We will have to be very focused, because the level of the other riders is high at the moment and everyone is riding fast. For tomorrow we shall concentrate on improving certain aspects of the bike and continue with the working method that we have been using.”
Marc Marquez >> Audio
FP1 – 1:31.557, 21 laps, 84 km.
FP2 – 1:31.220, 20 laps, 80 km.
“It was good to start the most important week of the season and with a good feeling. We still need to improve our setup but we were fastest today – which is the key thing ahead of Sunday’s race. Tomorrow we will continue in the same way but try to improve and take another step forward because I am sure that the rest of the riders will do so.”
