Repsol Honda team riders finish second and third, respectively, on the first day of free practice for San Marino GP.
Marc Marquez set the second fastest time and Dani Pedrosa the third, on the first day of free practice for the San Marino Grand Prix. The thirteenth round of the MotoGP World Championship takes place this weekend at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli.
The reigning MotoGP World Champion, who in the morning practice was the fastest man on track, improved his time by 4 tenths in the afternoon –stopping the clock at 1:32.924. With that time, Marquez was just 0.053s off the best lap of the day, set by Jorge Lorenzo.
Dani Pedrosa took third place behind his Repsol Honda teammate, with a best lap of 1:33.258. He was less than 4 tenths off the top spot for the day. The Spaniard, who had been fourth in the morning session, climbed to third place after improving by more than 6 tenths from FP1 to FP2.
Tomorrow sees the last two free practice sessions, before qualifying to decide the grid for Sunday’s race.
Marc Marquez >> Audio
2nd – 1:32.924, 41 laps, 173 km
“I think it has been a very positive day. The track has changed quite a lot from when we came here for the test, because it has much less grip and we have had some problems arise that we didn’t have back then. We can be happy, because we obtained a lot of data today and we tried a new swingarm which has helped Honda to understand the direction to take next year. We will not use it because there are some negatives, but there were also some positives to take from it.”
Dani Pedrosa >> Audio
3rd – 1:33.258, 39 laps, 165 km
“This first day at the track was not as good as the test we did here. It was a lot dirtier, we had less grip and it was more difficult to find a good feeling with the bike, which is a surprise as I expected with the lower temperatures than the test, the grip would be better. Today we worked well and pushed hard but tomorrow we need to continue working and focus on improving further.”
