The Repsol Honda Team riders will go through Q1, after placing eleventh and sixteenth on a tight Friday in Thailand.
Marc Márquez was just 65 thousandths of a second off the Top 10, missing out on a direct spot in Q2. He was among the 12 fastest riders throughout the session and, after making a time attack, set a 1:30.195 for eleventh overall.
He will go into Q1, and needs to place among the top two in order to go into the session that will establish the first four rows of the starting grid.
Joan Mir improved his performance throughout a day of extremely close times, but was also outside the Top 10.
He was the sixteenth fastest rider of the day, with a best time of 1:30.295 that was just 4 tenths off the top spot.
Saturday’s sprint race will take place at 15.00h local time.
MARC MÁRQUEZ – 11th 1’30.195
“I am happy with how today went; it was an optimistic goal to go straight to Q2 so we can’t be too disappointed. To miss out by 0.06s is not too bad all things considered, tomorrow we will try again even if it will be difficult. Our speed is there between tenth and 15th, if we do a lap behind someone, we can be faster because the slipstream can help a lot here in the first part of the track. No problems for me after the hit with the piece of carbon from Martin, it was just painful in the first minute or two because when you are going that speed everything can hurt. Afterwards today and for tomorrow it’s no problem.”
JOAN MIR – 16th 1’30.295
“Our day didn’t start in the best way, the base we had in the morning wasn’t what we needed at this track. So we spent time fixing that, making steps forward and learning all the time. In the last run two runs we had a bike that was pretty acceptable to be able to push with and we finished only 0.4s back. Like this we were able to end the day well, but the times here are so tight so even the smallest mistake in your quick lap can make a big difference. If we can find a bit of time overnight, let’s see what is possible tomorrow.”
