The reigning MotoGP World Champion, second in the first practice, crashes at the end of the second session, which prevents him from improving his times.
Dani Pedrosa lowered his times by more than 1 second from the first to the second session and ended the day just 0.028s off quickest rider Cal Crutchlow.
His Repsol Honda teammate, Marc Márquez, led the way for a large part of FP1, and was only overcome by Andrea Dovizioso on his penultimate lap, 0.007 faster than him.
He was also the man to beat for much of the second session, but after a crash at Turn 6 when there were less than 3 minutes remaining he would not go back out on track.
Marc Márquez | 5th, 1:38.863 sec.
“I’m generally happy with my first day here at Jerez because I think we did good work. We did a lot of laps on used tyres, and that’s important in view of the race. I had a small crash in the end with a front tyre that already had 27 laps on it, but it was mainly my mistake because I just braked too late into the corner. It seems that the Hondas are strong here, especially Dani, so we’ll see if we can get closer. It will be interesting to see how the tyres react to the higher temperature that’s expected tomorrow. Hopefully we’ll be able to keep a good pace and continue our direction of work, which I think is the correct one. This track is usually a bit challenging for me, but this year I feel good on the bike and am ready to fight for the podium and even the victory.”.
Dani Pedrosa | 2nd, 1:38.642 sec.
“This morning I started a bit slowly to test the condition of my hand, and from there I went, step by step, improving over the day, especially in the second session, when I was able to push a bit more. The positive aspect is that I felt better than at the last race, though I’m not yet 100% fit. I have more range of motion, and that allows me to move on the bike better in order to adopt a better position in the corners. What I still lack is full strength, and that still causes me to struggle and prevents me from riding exactly as I wish. Anyway, we did a good FP2 session and we know where we can improve further. I hope we’ll be able to do that tomorrow.”
