Reigning MotoGP World Champion sets the pace in opening two sessions of practice for the French Grand Prix. Dani Pedrosa places second in the morning and fifth in the afternoon.
Marc Marquez began the French Grand Prix weekend by picking up from where he left off two weeks ago: On top of the standings. The Repsol Honda rider led the way in both free practice sessions on Friday, showing his superiority at the start of the World Championship season. Teammate Dani Pedrosa also made a positive start to the visit to Le Mans, following his surgery 10 days ago. He placed fifth on the timesheets.
With sunshine and clear skies overhead –uncharacteristic weather at Le Mans– the opening practice session for the Repsol Honda team was a positive one. Marc Marquez set the best morning time, followed by Dani Pedrosa as the latter showed no ill-effects of his recent forearm operation. Pedrosa was just 0.189s off the top time set by his teammate.
In the afternoon runout, Marquez was once again the pacesetter for the MotoGP field. He clocked a 1’33.452 time on his fourteenth of 20 laps. Pedrosa was fifth fastest, with a time of 1’33.942. He was 0.490 behind Marquez.
Marc Marquez >> Audio
1st, 1:33.452, 40 laps, 167 km
“I felt comfortable right from the start today. We began with the base setup from Jerez and worked from there. In the afternoon we tried things out with the tyres and tweaked the setup further to keep going forward. Besides being the fastest over a single lap, our pace was also really good today, so I am happy with how everything went in general. Tomorrow we shall try to do even better, because I’m sure that the rest of the riders will take another step forward”.
Dani Pedrosa >> Audio
5th, 1:33.942, 43 laps, 180 km
“Today was basically a day to see what kind of shape I am in, and it went well. For the first time using my arm in ten days, the feeling is okay. I took things carefully and didn’t push too much, because I didn’t want to go 100% too soon. The initial feeling was pretty good, and we hope that things will improve further overnight. In theory today should be the toughest day, and I hope to be better tomorrow. On track I focused on putting in a lot of laps, but without making too many changes to the bike. We basically tried out the tyres, and at the moment the soft option seems to be the most adequate”.
