Difficult day at Italian Grand Prix for Repsol Honda Team riders, who will start from the third and fifth row of the grid.
The second day of practice for the Italian Grand Prix was a difficult challenge for the Repsol Honda Team riders. Dani Pedrosa finished seventh, in a qualifying session which did not feature Marc Marquez; the reigning World Champion was unable to make it out of Q1, setting the third fastest time to start thirteenth on the grid tomorrow.
In the third free practice session, despite quickly lowering his times from yesterday, Marquez failed to improve in the final minutes and dropped to eleventh by just 0.009s, forcing him to contest Q1. After FP4 –in which he took fifth despite a crash–, in the 15 minute Q1 session, he again only just missed out on progression. The Spaniard set a time of 1:47.240, just 0.018s off the second place. He will start tomorrow from the fifth row, in thirteenth.
On the third row will be Dani Pedrosa who, after placing seventh in FP3 and second in FP4, set the seventh fastest time in qualifying. With a time of 1:46.875, he was just 0.386 off the pole time put down by Andrea Iannone.
Tomorrow’s MotoGP Italian GP will begin at 2pm local time.
Marc Marquez >> Audio
13th – 1:47.240, 30 laps, 157 km
“We can’t be happy about today, because this was the worst qualifying result that we have had in MotoGP. Starting in the morning, we didn’t use the new tyre and that took us into Q1 –in which we had a problem that prevented us from progressing to Q2. Nevertheless, I think we have a good pace for tomorrow, although it is clear that starting from so far back we will suffer a lot. We will try to make a good start and opening few laps to get into the leading group.”
Dani Pedrosa >> Audio
7th – 1:46.875, 41 laps, 215 km
“Today went a little better. We were able to improve our pace, go faster and place a little higher up in the standings. We have taken a step forward with our lap time. However, the timesheet was very tight and we didn’t get a very good position on the grid so tomorrow we will need to get a good start.”
