MotoGP

Marquez Pulls Out Early Advantage At Valencia

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Marc Marquez made the ideal start to the biggest weekend of his life by topping the timesheets on Friday at Valencia. The championship leader was six hundredths of a second faster than teammate Dani Pedrosa in second place with an agitated Jorge Lorenzo a tenth further back in third.

Conditions were perfect in the morning session, topped by Marquez, but the wind picked up for FP2 and it took half of the 45 minute session for the times to improve. When they did so, Marquez was the man lighting up the timing screen with a 1:31.458, fractionally quicker than Pedrosa on the second Repsol Honda.

Dani came back at his teammate late on but Marquez would pip his compatriot with a 1:31.220 and the 20 year old was satisfied with his day’s work, although he acknowledges that there is work still to do.

“It was good to start the most important week of the season and with a good feeling”, commented Marquez. “We still need to improve our setup but we were fastest today – which is the key thing ahead of Sunday’s race. Tomorrow we will continue in the same way but try to improve and take another step forward because I am sure that the rest of the riders will do so”.

Lorenzo appeared exasperated at various points of the afternoon session with the YZR-M1 not performing to his liking but the defending champion was keeping things in perspective when he spoke after FP2.

“This afternoon was very windy so it was very difficult to make the same lap time of the morning but we managed to improve it a little bit”, Jorge explained. “We adjusted the bike a little electronically and also the suspension. We are quite close to everyone and ready to keep working tomorrow.”

Monster Yamaha Tech 3 established themselves as the closest challengers to the top two teams with Bradley Smith fourth fastest in the morning before being replaced by teammate Cal Crutchlow in the afternoon, although the elder Briton did end his afternoon on foot following a crash at turn eleven. Valentino Rossi took fifth ahead of Stefan Bradl and Alvaro Bautista with Smith relegated to eighth by the end of the day.

A quartet of Ducatis followed Smith with Andrea Dovizioso and Nicky Hayden the right side of the cut-off line for qualification into Q2. Andrea Iannone and Michele Pirro were close behind but will need to improve in FP3 to knock their fellow GP13 riders out of the top ten.

 

 GP GENERALI DE LA COMUNITAT VALENCIANA – COMBINED PRACTICE CLASSIFICATION
TOP TEN RIDERS AUTOMATICALLY ADVANCE TO QUALIFYING 2
POS RIDER CONSTRUCTOR TEAM TIME
1  MARC MARQUEZ HONDA REPSOL HONDA TEAM 1:31.220
2  DANI PEDROSA HONDA REPSOL HONDA TEAM 1:31.286
3  JORGE LORENZO YAMAHA YAMAHA FACTORY RACING 1:31.378
4  CAL CRUTCHLOW YAMAHA MONSTER YAMAHA TECH 3 1:31.502
5  VALENTINO ROSSI YAMAHA YAMAHA FACTORY RACING 1:31.639
6  STEFAN BRADL HONDA LCR HONDA MOTOGP 1:31.858
7  ALVARO BAUTISTA HONDA GO&FUN HONDA GRESINI 1:31.873
8  BRADLEY SMITH YAMAHA MONSTER YAMAHA TECH 3 1:31.984
9  ANDREA DOVIZIOSO DUCATI DUCATI TEAM 1:32.363
10  NICKY HAYDEN DUCATI DUCATI TEAM 1:32.395
11  ANDREA IANNONE DUCATI ENERGY T.I. PRAMAC RACING 1:32.596
12  MICHELE PIRRO DUCATI DUCATI TEST TEAM 1:32.756
13  ALEIX ESPARGARO ART POWER ELECTRONICS ASPAR 1:32.809
14  CLAUDIO CORTI FTR KAWASAKI NGM MOBILE FORWARD RACING 1:33.172
15  COLIN EDWARDS FTR KAWASAKI NGM MOBILE FORWARD RACING 1:33.252
16  HECTOR BARBERA FTR AVINTIA BLUSENS 1:33.270
17  DANILO PETRUCCI IODA-SUTER CAME IODARACING PROJECT 1:33.304
18  YONNY HERNANDEZ DUCATI IGNITE PRAMAC RACING TEAM 1:33.487
19  RANDY DE PUNIET ART POWER ELECTRONICS ASPAR 1:33.570
20  LUCA SCASSA ART CARDION AB MOTORACING 1:34.049
21  HIROSHI AOYAMA FTR AVINTIA BLUSENS 1:34.077
22  MICHAEL LAVERTY ART PAUL BIRD MOTORSPORT 1:34.132
23  BRYAN STARING FTR HONDA GO&FUN HONDA GRESINI 1:35.478
24  DAMIAN CUDLIN PBM PAUL BIRD MOTORSPORT 1:35.644
25  MARTIN BAUER S&B SUTER REMUS RACING TEAM 1:35.832
26  LUKAS PESEK IODA-SUTER CAME IODARACING PROJECT 1:36.353
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