Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda Team) had a troubled opening day at the Gran Premi Monster Energy de Catalunya, ending Friday down in 12th on the combined Free Practice times after crashing for the ninth time this season – his fourth fall in FP2.
The Championship leader lost the front at Turn 5 towards the end of FP2 while everyone else started to set quick lap times, with Marquez unable to rejoin before the end of the session. However, as the number 93 explains, his race pace is up there with the quickest riders and the reigning World Champion doesn’t seem to be too fazed by his difficult opening day in Catalunya.
“Yeah of course if you check P12 it says you are out of the top ten but apart from that on the rhythm and the race pace we are one of the top three guys, this is the most important thing. Basically, in the last part of the practice I didn’t put in the soft tyre, and here you feel the soft tyre a lot because of the long corners, the rear grip is so important.”
The Honda rider continued, “but apart from that I’m quietly happy, there’s still a few things to improve because I had some problems, but it looks like we know how to improve but we’re waiting for tomorrow morning.”
So, what were the problems Marquez encountered? “On the electronics side there is something that isn’t working in the correct way,” clarified the number 93, who went on to explain how the team have already found something that could help solve the issue ahead of Saturday’s track action. “We don’t know, we are trying to find it but we have already found something so during this evening we will try and solve the problem and improve for tomorrow.”
Will Marquez bounce back and fight for pole position tomorrow?