Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda Team) was already aware – despite a stunning win at MotorLand Aragon – that arriving at Honda’s home track of the Twin Ring Motegi would prove a bigger challenge than his home circuit in Spain, but the 2013 and 2014 MotoGP™ World Champion was happy at the end of play on Friday after finding himself further forward than expected. After Misano was also kinder to the Honda squad than feared, Motegi began positively as the points leader was fourth on the combined timings and has a good rhythm – despite a slow, drama-free crash in FP2 on the hard front tyre.
Marc Marquez (P4): “Today I’m happy because I expected to be further away from the top guys – but we’re close. We’re working well with the bike. This afternoon we tried the tyres like we did in Aragon and Misano, sacrificing some time on Friday afternoon to try them out. With the front hard one I had a small crash but we need to understand why. But the most important thing is that I improved the lap time and the rhythm is there.”