World Champion, Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez, has finished the first day in Texas a second faster than his next competitor, with teammate Dani Pedrosa in third.
With air temperatures 7ºC warmer than this morning, and the track temperature 20ºC hotter, all the riders were able to improve on this morning’s FP1 time. Both Marc and Dani spent the afternoon session, and set their fastest times, on the hard front and rear option Bridgestone tyres with Marc’s fastest time of 2’03.490 (just 0.469s off his pole time from 2013) coming on lap 9 of 15, and Dani’s time of 2’04.623 on his final lap of 15.
FP3 will commence tomorrow at 09h55 local time.
Marc Marquez
1st – 2’03.490
This first day of practice in Austin went really well. Obviously I’m happy with the time I set, and also with the gap of a second between myself and the next quickest rider. However, the most important thing for me is that my leg feels ok – much better than it did in Qatar. The injury was bothering me a little, but I was able to participate in both Free Practice sessions without taking any painkillers. Now I just have to wait for tomorrow and see if things go better or worse for us then; we know that we have a small advantage and we will try to manage it well, but I am aware that the rest of the riders will also make improvements”
Dani Pedrosa
3rd – 2’04.623
Today we did a good job with the tyres. We tried the hard compound and it went fairly well for us. Although we didn’t go very fast, we have a good feeling and I think that with a few tweaks to the setup we can take a big step forward and improve considerably tomorrow. Today was a positive day for us”
