Repsol riders occupy second and seventh, respectively, on the first day of practice.
This Friday, Motegi opened its doors to begin the first round of three flyaway events, which the title is on the line in Moto3. The two proteges of Emilio Alzamora, Alex Rins and Alex Marquez, had an outstanding showing on the first day of practice, with Rins second and Marquez seventh.
Both riders focused this first day at work on setting up their bikes, always with the race on Sunday in mind. In the morning session, Rins set the fifth fastest time with a 1:58.233 lap, after completing 15 laps of the Japanese track. His teammate and overall series leader, Alex Marquez, was sixth with a time of 1:58.305, putting in 17 laps.
In the second practice session Rins was very competitive throughout, whilst teammate Marquez made improvements to finish seventh. Rins lowered his top morning time by about 1 second ‒1:57.375 and Marquez has reduced his best effort from FP1 by almost half a second.
Rins was just 0.058s off Briton Danny Kent, the fastest man on Day 1, and Marquez was 0.548s off the top spot.
Alex Rins >> Audio
2nd, 1’57.375 sec, 34 Laps, 163 km.
“The feeling was pretty good from the start; although the track did not have much grip, we were fast and in the afternoon when the conditions were much better we continued to improve. It is important to go out on track and get straight to work –even more so at Honda’s home circuit– to find problems early, since we’ve seen that many riders are strong at this track and we must be alert”.
Alex Marquez >> Audio
7th, 1’57.865 sec, 34 Laps, 163 km.
“It’s been a good day. We struggled a bit and we finished half a second from the top, but I think it was a day in which we progressed gradually, taking small steps forward. We did not improve my feeling a lot in the afternoon compared to the morning; we had a few problems and need to feel better on the bike tomorow, but I think today has been positive”.
