Repsol Moto3 riders take step forward on second day of practice at Losail. Rins sets second fastest time and Marquez the third.
Lap by lap, Alex Rins and Alex Marquez continue to show the results of the intensive developmental work undertaken in their garage. On the second night of action at the Losail Circuit in Qatar, the duo lowered their times from yesterday and pushed to the top of the timesheets. Rins concluded the night in second and Marquez was third.
The third free practice session of the Qatar GP started with more wind than on Thursday, preventing the top riders from lowering their previous best lap times in the early going. However, Rins and Marquez gradually improved the setup of their Honda NSF250RWs and gained confidence as they shaved several tenths off their fastest times. Rins stopped the clock at 2:06.182 and was 0.061s off the quickest man, Romano Fenati. Marquez followed with a time of 2:06.273.
Tomorrow sees the critical qualifying session to decide the grid for the race, which takes place on Sunday at 7pm local time and starts the 2014 Moto3 World Championship.
Alex Rins >> Audio
2:06.182, 15 laps, 81 km
“We have taken a step forward from yesterday. Now that we have begun to go faster, I can understand the bike a little better and see its reactions. I am very happy with the times we have set and we will try to continue refining the setup to be ready for the race. The feeling with the bike today is much improved, even though it was harder to set good times because the conditions changed from yesterday. Today We had less grip. Having MotoGP run before us helped.”
Alex Marquez >> Audio
2:06.273, 15 laps, 81 km
“I think we did a good job today. From the start we tried a few things we’d had in mind and that we thought would allow me to ride more comfortablly, but on the first two stints the feeling was not what we had expected. I am happier with how I felt on the bike in the closing stages, in which our laps were pretty good. I’m not completely satisfied, because I think I could have ridden faster and I’m sure that we can keep improving. Tomorrow we have to be very focused, because we only have one session and we’ll be the first to go out on track.”
