Marc Marquez didn’t feel he achieved anything worthwhile on Monday at Sepang, describing the opening day of the second pre-season test as “not very productive”. The world champion stunned everyone with his pace at Sepang 1, setting a record-breaking 1:58.867, but admitted he didn’t feel as comfortable at any stage yesterday.
“Today was a slightly strange day and not very productive, because I had some difficulties with the front brakes from the first run-out. We focused on improving that aspect of the bike and could only do runs of one or two laps. That took up the time we had allotted for trying other things and prevented us from progressing. Now we will try to find the source of the problem and tomorrow we hope to continue with the testing plan.”
Marquez was sixth, six tenths and four places behind Repsol Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa and the elder Spaniard had a much more positive appraisal of Monday’s running.
“Today we focused on testing different setups for the bike and I think it went well. We have not tried any new parts, instead confirming our findings with what we had at the last test, even though the track was not perfect. It rained at the end, so we could also ride a little in those conditions. Tomorrow we will continue testing some changes to the setup, to see if we can come up with some improvements that allow us to ride more comfortably.”