Marc Marquez returned today to competition at the Portuguese track of Estoril with firm determination and had a good performance. The Repsol rider set the third fastest time in the first session at the beginning of a Grand Prix where rain is expected on the three days. In the afternoon, when rain finally appeared, Alzamora’s pupil set the fifth fastest time.
Despite all the set-up work left to do in the young 125cc World Champion bike, who rode again today in the same setting where at the end of last season he had a truly epic race, Marc was able to complete two positive training sessions at the Estoril track. In the morning, the Repsol rider set his best time, 53 thousandths behind the fastest time set by the Japanese rider Takahashi, in the last of the 18 laps he did.
In the afternoon, after making some changes on his bike set-up, Marquez and his team were ready to take the track to check the improvements.Nevertheless, the intermittent rain that fell on the Portuguese track at the end of the MotoGP session forced the Moto2 session to be held on a track half dry and half damp. Only six riders got out under those conditions, while the rest waited patiently on their garages for the track to get completely wet or dry.
16 minutes from the end of the session and with the track wet, Marquez got out on rain tyres to check the asphalt conditions. In the fourth lap, the Repsol rider took the third place, finishing the session fifth after 6 laps. Again, Takahashi was the fastest.
In the combined classification of both sessions, Marc Marquez took the third position in this first day of the Portuguese Grand Prix.
Marc Màrquez >> Audio
FP1 – 1:42.455, 18 laps, 75 km.
FP2 – 1:53.980, 6 laps, 25 km.
“After these short break, the first training day has been fairly good. Naturally, at the beginning I had not the same confidence with the bike as in Jerez, because after so many days without riding, you do not forget, but you feel a little weird at the start. But we were able to improve during the whole session and we could test some small changes. Now we know on which points we have to focus and we will see if tomorrow we can ride on dry, to keep improving the set-up. In the afternoon we were not able to do much, as with so little rain, the track was neither dry, nor wet enough. We decided not to do more laps to avoid unnecessary risks”.
