As the races go by Marc Márquez is confirming that he is one of the fastest riders in the 125cc category. Today, in the the first free practice session before the Czech Republic GP, the Repsol rider finished 2nd just 113 thousandths behind Bradley Smith. Scott Redding was also consistently among the top ten, exactly where he was at the end of the session. His teammate, Esteve Rabat, got better as the session advanced and was 13th in the end. Cameron Beaubier, who fell at the end was 20th.
After the first practice for the Czech Republic GP, Marc Márquez has ddemonstrated that he is in tip-top form after the short summer break, ready to show that the reason why he has had such good results in the last few races is because of the hard work done by the young Repsol rider allied with his talent. In the first free practice he did not take long to get in the fastest group, fighting to set the fastest time from the very beginning right to the final lap. Márquez made it plain to see that the KTM with the number 93 is one of the bikes to keep an eye on this weekend, and after his 2nd position today the Repsol rider will continue working to get the best possible result.
His teammate, Cameron Beaubier, showed that the progress made 3 weeks ago in the UK was no flash in the panas he was always between 15th and 20th position, in the end he was 20th, less than 2 seconds behind the leader. Beaubier did a good practice session but this was spoilt by a small fall on his final lap, on corner 3, which stopped him from improving his final position.
In the team BQR, Scott Redding showed that he has kept his good form and rode at a high level finishing among the fastest riders, this was in spite of some problems with the engine on his Aprilia just after going out onto the track. In the end the Repsol rider was 10th, a little over a second off Bradley Smith`s ‘pole’. His teammate, Esteve Rabat, also had a positive session and although he was well off the pace at the beginning, he was able to improve his pace and set a best time of 2 minutes 10.962 seconds, 1.7 behind the leader.
Marc Márquez, 2’09.324 secs, 21 laps, 113 km. >> Audio
“I felt quite well. After the two week break I was not expecting to go out and get the good sensations that I had today because it took me quite some time at this circuit last year. But I very quickly got comfortable and I improved on the times I set last year. Harald Bartol and KTM have been working the last couple of weeks and you can see that very easily. I am confident that we can improve together even more, and that is what we are doing. I was 2nd today, but this is free practice and tomorrow everybody will be better. I think we can also take a big step forward and carry on working along the same lines. It is important to have a good set up for when you come out of the corners here, because there are some slopes and straights where you need to go fast if you are to do a good lap”.
Esteve Rabat, 2’10.962 secs, 18 laps, 97 km. >> Audio
“It had been a long time without riding and I was really dying to get out there and get down to work. At the beginning the track was a bit dirty, but it soon got cleaned by the riders and bikes and then the times got better. Tomorrow we will have to set up the chassis as well as the suspension, the engine and select the tyres, because today we tried many different things and we still have to find which combination is the best. We will continue taking things step by step, working hard to be among the leading group of riders”.
Scott Redding, 2’10.401 secs, 20 laps, 108 km. >> Audio
“This was not a bad practice. We had a small problem with the engine, because at the beginning the carburation was not right and the bike did not have as much power as it should. We worked on the suspension quite a bit, and towards the end we were better. The track was a bit dirty so I could not ride very aggressively, because it seemed that we were on new tyres as they moved around a lot. Tomorrow we will try to improve the front end handling because I had some problems when braking”.
Cameron Beaubier, 2’11. 168 secs, 22 laps, 119 km. >> Audio
“Right from the start I felt quite comfortable, although later it was more difficult to set faster times. On my final lap I was trying to follow Marc [Márquez], and I fell. I am a little disappointed with that, but I did 2 laps behind him and I felt much more comfortable than on previous occasions. I hope I can do another good session tomorrow and that we can begin to prepare for the race”.
