The Repsol rider finished second in the first free practice, happy with the good recovery of his shoulder after the injury he incurred in Jerez less than three weeks ago.
Marc Marquéz could not have started the French Grand Prix better. After the bad fall he had at the last Grand Prix in Spain, in which the Repsol rider dislocated his right shoulder, the young Márquez returned to business today in a very positive way after spending the last two weeks physically recovering from his injuries. In the first Le Mans free practice session, the Repsol rider made progress step by step, finally positioning himself in a well-deserved second place.
With all the doubts about how his shoulder would hold up after such a short recovery time, Márquez hardly felt any pain when it came time to ride, only suffering from tiredness, natural after the mandatory rest period which he had to take. He did 25 laps of the Bugatti Le Mans circuit, the modified track of 4.185 metres of the mythical venue of the French 24 hour race, without taking any risks which could put him to the floor with such a fresh shoulder injury.
The Repsol rider was able to maintain a steady fast pace, always amongst the fastest in the class and with a time of 1 minute, 44 seconds and 430 milliseconds, he finished second, behind Pol Espargaró. Looking towards tomorrow’s qualifying, Márquez and his team will be working this afternoon with the aim of making set-up adjustments which will help to improve on exiting the turns, a point which makes a time difference and where most time is lost.
Marc Márquez, 1’44.430 sec, 25 laps, 105 km.
“I felt quite well, better than I expected. My shoulder hardly hurt, although when I finished I did feel a little more tired than normal. Anyway, I thought it would be more difficult and in the end, it was a comfortable ride. Pol [Espargaró] set a good time, but tomorrow I’m sure we will be able to improve the bike quite a lot and we will reduce the times. The track didn’t have that much grip at the beginning but we managed to clock up a good time without taking any risks, apart from the frights that the bike gave me. We have to mainly work on the braking and the exits from the turns because we have a problem which we will analyse this afternoon with today’s data, to resolve it for tomorrow”.
