Repsol Honda team riders finish fourth and eighth, respectively, in the MotoGP World Championship’s first official experience of the Chang International Circuit.
The morning session allowed Marc Márquez -5th- and Dani Pedrosa -13th-, to get reacquainted with the track that they tested at in February.
In FP2, the World Championship leader improved his best lap time by more than half a second, to close the day fourth on the combined timesheet.
Dani Pedrosa, who also lowered his time from the morning session by almost a second, finished eighth in the afternoon.
FP2 was interrupted for a few moments, due to a red flag shown after a heavy crash by Jorge Lorenzo at Turn 3, with 12 minutes remaining.
MARC MÁRQUEZ 4th | 1’31.188
“I felt good on the bike today. Conditions are hot, but not unbearably hot! We worked in the same way as at the recent GPs, using the Friday sessions to try and understand the tyres, the bike, the electronics setup, and the track conditions. Of course we pushed, but with a working plan in mind. The track surface was a bit slippery in the morning but it improved over the day. At the moment, the lap times are slower than in the test; I believe that’s because we have a different rear tyre that is working in a different way, so basically, we need to adapt the setup to it. Anyway, so far we’re working well and I feel comfortable with our race pace. Tomorrow we’ll see more clearly where we all are.”
DANI PEDROSA 8th | 1’31.385
“Today we worked a lot with the tyres and on understanding the track conditions, which improved quite a bit after the first session. We managed to try a few of the tyre specs that Michelin brought here because it will be important to find the best compromise between grip, traction and durability. Tomorrow we must continue working on this aspect, but so far I think we’ve done a good job. We’re improving our feeling step by step, and we have to keep up this progression.”
