Aragon MotoGP: Top 5 quotes after Day 1 practice
Masterful 1-2 for Dani Pedrosa and Marc Marquez on Day 1 in Aragón
Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
| Cla | Driver | Bike | Laps | Time | Gap | Interval | km/h |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Dani Pedrosa |
Honda | 18 | 1'48.429 | 168.596 | ||
| “Obviously, I’m happy with first place even if it was a bit of a strange day. The sun never came out and we didn’t have the higher temperatures we had expected, which meant that I never quite felt totally comfortable. Anyway, we worked well and improved a lot in the afternoon. We focused on testing tyres, trying to use them all, but we have one left to test. For the rear, for example, both the hard and the medium compounds are good choices, but we still have to see how the track will change. We’re continuing to try to keep the pace and concentration up in every exit, step by step. Our goal for tomorrow is to have a good qualifying session.” | |||||||
| 2 | Marc Marquez |
Honda | 19 | 1'48.494 | 0.065 | 0.065 | 168.495 |
| “Today went rather well. Aragon has always been a good track for me, and it suits my riding style. Following our plan, we focused on working with the race in mind and had some good luck in that it didn’t rain in the end. Our work went well, and on the last stint I ran a new hard tyre that allowed me to set a fast time and put in some consecutive laps while also setting a good pace. We still need to understand a few things, like how the softer rear tyre drops off, because everyone suffers with grip here. We also need to finish off trying out the front tyres, because we haven’t been able to use the extra-hard too much. I’m happy with how things have gone in general. Finally, I wish to congratulate my mechanic Ujino-san, who remained in Japan for this race as he became a father a few days ago!” | |||||||
| 3 |  Cal Crutchlow |
Honda | 18 | 1'48.510 | 0.081 | 0.016 | 168.471 |
| “It’s not been too bad a day, but not great either. I felt OK with the bike and the LCR Honda Team have done a good job again as we worked through a few things that we needed to try. Mainly I’m struggling on corner entry at the moment, and we need to improve that for tomorrow because that’s the area that we will gain most from. Deceleration is where it’s been an issue, which means that we are forced to take risks with the front, so let’s see for tomorrow. Overall we are happy enough and we are quite confident after how the day has gone.” | |||||||
| 4 |  Valentino Rossi |
Yamaha | 20 | 1'48.669 | 0.240 | 0.159 | 168.224 |
| "In both practice sessions, in the morning and the afternoon, I was always quite strong but we have a lot of work to do, because we are good with the new tyres, the hard and the soft, after some laps. We are concentrating on this point of view, because it will be interesting for Sunday. From this first day we take some data and are quite happy. The first impression is this: with the new tyres we are very good, but after some laps our main rival suffers less with less stress on the tyres. This is quite worrisome for us and we have to get closer." | |||||||
| 5 | Pol Espargaro |
Yamaha | 14 | 1'48.749 | 0.320 | 0.080 | 168.100 |
| "Today has been a strong start to the weekend and I believe that finishing inside the top 5 is a truly positive result for us. The Hondas are running really well here and you can see that by looking at the time sheets, so to be as close as we are is certainly a promising way to kick off proceedings. Yet, in the middle of the FP2 session, I made a slight mistake and crashed in the second corner while I was changing direction, which was a pity. I didn’t expect this to happen and I think we have to work a bit more on the setting of the bike in order to increase the front grip so that we avoid this kind of issue for the rest of the weekend. However, I was able to cut my lap time towards the end of the practice even though I was not pushing at the maximum level. Having said that, we need to improve tomorrow and make a step up as our main target is to fight with Cal for the best independent rider position in Sunday’s race." | |||||||
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