Marc Marquez admitted that he was as surprised as everybody else when he set the fastest ever two-wheeled lap of Sepang. The world champion stunned his rivals with a 1:58.867 just half an hour into the day’s running, a time that none of the competition could beat, and the Spaniard took only positives from the final day of the test.
“The truth is that when I saw the time I was surprised, just like everyone else! In any case, I must say that today the track was fast, as we all rode faster than before. I’m glad I was able to set a good lap, but more important is the fact that I felt very comfortable, right from the start. We did a race simulation later on, which also went very well and was perhaps even more important than a single lap. During the race simulation we tested different mapping and in every part we tried different things. The positive is that with the new bike we are already at the same level as in 2014, and there is still plenty of room for improvement. Now I can’t wait for the second test and to see what progress we can make.”
Dani Pedrosa closed to within a tenth of his teammate with a 1:59.006 and ominously for the rest of the field, the 29 year old sees Repsol Honda growing stronger before Qatar.
“I’m happy with the work we have done today, because we have made progress in some aspects with the rear. There is still room for improvement, but overall we’ve taken some pretty positive steps in this test and I think that’s a very good thing. The team have also integrated well and we have worked very smoothly together, so I’m very happy about that. We did a race simulation in which we tested the bike for the first time in such a scenario. Obviously there are some things to improve but, considering it was the first time, the findings have been pretty good!”
