Repsol Honda riders Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa took plenty of positives from their first test day of 2015 at Sepang. Marquez topped the timesheets after usurping Valentino Rossi with his penultimate lap of the afternoon and the 21 year old feels he found the best direction with his RC213V late on after an experimental start.
“I’m glad to finally get back on the bike. It’s been a hard day and at the same time very positive, because on the first day after the winter break you have to regain confidence with the bike and adapt to the feeling of the MotoGP machine again. We tried three different bikes today, and this has been very important. I focused on testing them thoroughly and deciding which bike was the ideal one to continue working with at this test, and then this afternoon we focused more on one of the machines. I was able to start riding better and feel more comfortable on the bike. There are still many things to try at this test, so we have to remain calm like we did today and keep working.”
Pedrosa made a bright start to the day but a crash at turn nine on his final run prevented him from climbing any higher than fifth. Despite the mishap, Dani was content with his day’s work.
“I’m happy with the work we have done today on the first day of testing, because we were able to get back on the bike and we had a good pace. It went pretty well and I think we have improved the bike compared to the one we tested it at Valencia. We had a lot of work to do and it has been positive to have a good first day: it was important and we are happy with what we have achieved. There is still more to do, but we have taken a good first step. Tomorrow we’ll see if we can continue moving things forward.”