Repsol riders Rins and Marquez place first and second, respectively, on opening day at Aragon, continuing from podium one-twos from previous two races.
The Moto3 World Championship returned to Spain today with the first day of practice for the Aragon Grand Prix. After two practice sessions, the stars of the day were the same as the two standing atop the podium at the last two races; Alex Rins and Alex Marquez ended the day at the head of the timesheets.
The Repsol riders have gone from strength to strength in their performances on track. Rins, fifth in the morning session today, topped the final standings for the day with a time of 1:58.788. A mere 0.018 milliseconds back and 1.5 seconds faster than in the morning was Alex Marquez, who suffered a small crash on his second lap of the day but still was able to get back on track for a brief stint at the top of the timesheets.
Both riders made their hard work with HRC count and tomorrow will have two further practice sessions before Sunday’s race.
Alex Rins >> Audio
1st – 1:58.788, 31 laps, 157 km
“Today went very well for us and we are happy with the pace that we set. At the start it seemed like we would find things a little hard, because the track conditions were not ideal, but in the afternoon the asphalt had much more grip and you could feel the difference. We set a good lap time but at this track it is very easy to lower your times with someone in front of you to slipstream, so we will need to have a little luck in qualifying tomorrow.”
Alex Marquez >> Audio
2nd – 1:58.806, 27 laps, 137 km
“The opening day at Aragon went rather well. I am very happy, except for the crash this morning that was my mistake –I apologise to the team for that. Over the course of the day we have progressed a lot, and you can see that the base setup that we had from the test here was useful. This made things a little easier, but we had to be just as focused and take things step-by-step. In the afternoon we worked with the race in mind. That is very important, because of tyre wear. I think that we have a good setup for tomorrow. It will be important to get onto the first or second row of the grid.”
