Repsol Honda team riders finish the opening day of practice at the historic Assen circuit in eighth and eleventh position, respectively.
Marc Márquez was in front in the first Free Practice session. In FP2 he lowered his time by 2 tenths, riding throughout the session with the same set of hard compound tyres.
Dani Pedrosa, fourteenth in the first Free Practice, improved by a second at the end of the day, to close Friday eleventh on the timesheets.
MARC MÁRQUEZ | 8th 1’34.041
“All in all, the day was quite good because here in Assen we normally struggle, whereas today I felt good with the bike from the beginning and was able to keep a good rhythm. The bike was a bit unstable, but we improved that with the setup. In the afternoon, we worked a lot for the race, on hard tyres. It looks like everything is going in the correct direction, but at the same time it seems that everything is very tight this weekend. The weather is good, so everyone can prepare well for the race. Choosing the right tyres will be important, especially the rear. We have two very similar options, and that can lead to an advantage or a mistake. We have to choose well.”
DANI PEDROSA | 11th 1’34.167
“As always, things are a bit difficult at this track, but some runs were better that others. Something we need to focus on is our performance with the soft tyre. Today we weren’t able to improve when we fitted it. Another area we need to address is the T4 sector of the track, where we want to perform better and be faster. For the rest, we’re getting on the rhythm and hopefully we’ll be able to exploit the good weather and take a step tomorrow.”
