Marquez fastest on day one in Australia

The first day of free practice has taken place in Phillip Island with Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez leading the way. Teammate Dani Pedrosa finished 6th in the combined times.

In typical fashion the weather has been very changeable, with cold and windy conditions in this morning’s FP1 and rain arriving at the end of the session. Then in FP2 the sun came out allowing the riders to work on their setup in preparation for tomorrow’s qualifying and also test the asymmetric front tyre.

The times were very close with thirteen riders within 0.9 seconds of each other but Marc topped the time sheets with his lap of 1’29.383 (lap 17/19). Dani was just 0.297 behind his teammate with 1’29.876 (lap 18/19).

Marc Marquez (1st 1’29.383)

"It was a good day overall. The morning session was a bit tricky because there was some light rain, but you could still go fast. In the afternoon we worked a lot on setting the bike up for the race, because it will be held at a similar time, and I think we took a step forward. Once again, Jorge is very fast, but we are working well, we have good pace and were able to set a good lap. What is important is that the changes we have made to the setup of the bike have allowed us to improve."

Dani Pedrosa (6th 1’29.876)

"Today we started to work on the setup of the bike, trying to think about tomorrow and Sunday's race, and we tested the asymmetrical front tyre. We have to keep working because we had some difficult conditions in the morning. Although it was clearer in the afternoon, there was still not much grip and we could not make much headway. Let's see if tomorrow the track is in better condition and we can improve."

Repsol Honda