Reigning World Champion, Marc Marquez, sets second fastest time of the day, with Repsol Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa in fourth.
Just 0.033s separated Marc from being the fastest rider of the day at Silverstone on Friday. After setting the best lap in the morning free practice session at the British GP venue -where ambient temperatures only reached a chilly 16ºC- in the afternoon he was bested by Jorge Lorenzo and was forced to settle for the second best time of the opening day.
Dani made solid improvements over the course of the two free practice sessions. after finishing eighth in the first practice session, 1.236s off Marquez’ timesheet topping lap of 2:03.111. Despite a mechanical problem with his rear brake in the afternoon, the Spaniard took almost 2 seconds off his time. He cut the gap to eventual fastest man on Friday, Jorge Lorenzo, to just over 2 tenths, placing fourth.
Tomorrow sees the second day of action at Silverstone, with the headline attraction of qualifying for the British GP -round twelve of the season.
Marc Marquez >> Audio
2nd, 2:02.371 sec, 33 laps, 195 km.
“I’m happy with today, as things have gone quite well. It was a good day and we have made continuous positive development, improving our top lap time considerably from the first session to the second. The important thing is that I felt very comfortable and we are up at the top, competing at the same level as Jorge, who is very strong and riding with a lot of confidence. Our goal tomorrow will be to keep up the same way of working that we saw today and to further improve in any aspect where there is still room to do so. We will focus especially on setting up the bike for the race, because it will be a long one.”
Dani Pedrosa >> Audio
4th, 2:02.573 sec, 30 laps, 177 km.
“I am satisfied with the work we have done today, as this afternoon we took a good step forward and I lowered my times considerably, but I would like to improve even more. We had a small problem with the rear brake; it broke and the rear wheel was slowing us down. Luckily it was only that small issue, and we will fix it. There are a couple of things we have to work on with the bike, especially corner entry and the fact that we are losing rear grip as the laps go by. We need to fix this to get closer to Jorge and Marc, who are very strong at this circuit . The goal is to qualify high up and be as close as possible to them. My foot is much better, there are a couple of corners where I still feel some pain, but on the rest of the track I can concentrate on my riding.”
