Repsol Honda team riders qualify third and sixth for Japanese Grand Prix.
Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa will start tomorrow’s Japanese Grand Prix rounding off the first and second rows, respectively, of the grid. The Repsol Honda team riders experienced a hard day at Motegi, but the reigning World Champion achieved a creditable third place and his teammate sixth.
After the third practice session, in which Marquez was fourth and Pedrosa eleventh, the pair placed third and sixth place in the fourth free practice -delayed by a crash for Alex de Angelis in the opening minutes. In the qualifying session, both riders repeated their positions with steady improvements in to their times. On his last hot lap, Marquez stopped the clock at 1:44.216, with Pedrosa putting in his best time on his final lap: 1:44.582.
Tomorrow, the fifteenth MotoGP race of the year will begin at 2pm local time -7am CET.
Marc Marquez >> Audio
3rd -1:44.216, 40 laps, 192 km
“Today has been another difficult day, but it is important for tomorrow that my hand has not got worse and has remained quite stable. I’m happy, because on a single lap, with new tyres, we were able to achieve a good time and improve on the target we had set ourselves, which was to start from the second row. However, we must be realistic and if it does not rain tomorrow, both Jorge and Valentino are one step ahead and we will be fighting for third place. We are working on the setup of the bike, but it seems that we’re finding it hard to find a good compromise. We are getting closer and I am very happy with all the work the team are doing.”
Dani Pedrosa >> Audio
6th -1:44.582, 41 laps, 197 km
“Today has not been a great day, because we had some problems with the setup of the bike and I wasn’t riding very comfortably. In the qualifying session I managed to finish in a reasonable position and tomorrow we will try to do our best, be motivated and try to improve. It may be that the weather changes, so we will have to be very focused to try to make the most of our chances.”
