The Repsol Honda team rider progressively improved during Friday’s two Free Practice sessions, in which Dani Pedrosa finished fifteenth.
The World Championship leader was tenth in his first session on the new Silverstone asphalt.
Márquez suffered a crash on his sixth lap at Turn 16, almost managing to make the save with his elbow and knee.
Dani Pedrosa improved by almost two seconds between FP1 and FP2, and finished the day in fifteenth position.
MARC MÁRQUEZ | 4th2’01.529
“I’m very happy with today’s final outcome because this morning we didn’t have the best start to the weekend; I didn’t feel comfortable on the bike and also had a small slide that didn’t help. We struggled with the bumps, wind and new asphalt because last year’s base setup wasn’t working so well anymore. We did a recheck of everything and made a huge step from FP1 to FP2. We understood the direction to follow, which is very positive; the team has done a great job. We must continue this way tomorrow as there are a few things we have to improve further, but the important thing is that we’re right there again, not far from the top. Tomorrow we’ll try to get a front-row start, but if that’s not possible, we must do not worse than the second row because with a high chance of rain on Sunday, it will be important to start near the front.”
DANI PEDROSA | 15th2’02.864
“I hoped to have a better feeling on the new asphalt but unfortunately there still some bumps on the track, and with the addition of some wind, the bike was moving around quite a lot. We actually made an improvement in the afternoon and recovered up to a top-10 place, but at the very end of the session, we didn’t make that final step that would have allowed us to keep it. Tomorrow we’ll try to improve the bike’s setup further and also work on tyre choice, as we have an extra spec here that we need to test.”
