Sixth position overall and another save for the 2019 MotoGP World Champion, with his Repsol Honda teammate in seventeenth
Marc Márquez made another save in the first Free Practice, which he concluded with the fourth best time -set on the last of the 13 laps he completed.
With an ambient temperature of more than 30ºC and track temperatures above 50ºC, Márquez accumulated another 16 laps in FP2, which he finished in thirteenth place.
Teammate Jorge Lorenzo improved by 8 tenths from the first Free Practice to the second, which he ended in 17th position on the combined timesheets.
Marc Márquez | 6th 1’59.517
“Today was a busy day, just in the first or second lap of the day I had a very big save. It was probably one of the best of the season, but we also had a warning from the bike’s dashboard later. I decided it was better to be safe and switch off the bike and come back to the box. The team resolved it and, in the end, it wasn’t a big issue and afterwards we were able to work normally. This afternoon we worked on our race pace and it wasn’t too bad. I think we’re second or third right now in terms of pace. The team is focused on the end of the season, but we also have an eye on 2020 and tried some ideas today.”
Jorge Lorenzo | 17th 2’00.705
“From Phillip Island to here, it’s a big change – they’re almost the opposite. Here, there is a lot of grip and it’s quite flat with good weather, all of this has given me a better feeling. In terms of our pace we were 1.1 to 1.5 seconds behind. We tried something different with the setting to improve our rear grip, but we weren’t able to take full profit of it when pushing for a single fast lap so I think I could have done a 2’00.3 or a 2’00.2 and been closer to the front. For tomorrow the objective is to keep improving and do a 1’59.”
