Marquez third fastest, Pedrosa 11th on the opening day of the Malaysian Grand Prix

2018-11-02 13:38
After setting the tenth quickest time in today’s FP1 session at Sepang, spent as always on the same set of tyres, Marc Marquez managed to lower his time by over a second in the afternoon’s FP2 session, finishing second fastest (third in the combined classification) just 0.093” behind provisional pole setter Alex Rins.

Dani Pedrosa struggled to find a good feeling but improved a bit his lap time in the afternoon, ending the FP2 session in 10th place (11th in the combined classification) less than one second off the top.

Marc Marquez
2ND (COMBINED 3RD) 1'59.701
“All in all it was a good day for us. This morning I felt good, but this afternoon we struggled a lot at the beginning of the FP2 session: I had some moments and had save it a few times. Finally, we changed the front tyre from hard to medium and in the last run we could improve our speed and our lap time. Anyway we need to work very hard on our race pace. We’ll try a different setup in order to see if we may manage better the front tyre. We need to make a step forward is we want to get closer to Dovizioso, who at the moment is the fastest out there.”

Marc Marquez
Dani Pedrosa
10TH (COMBINED 11TH) 2'00.579
“Today we had not really a good feeling. No much grip on the rear and we also struggled a lot in turning. I could not make the pace I would like to have here. In the afternoon we improved the lap time but the grip was even worse. We need to improve the bike’s setup because so far we have not the feeling we had in the test. We must to figure out what to do for tomorrow and keep working hard. It will be important to go out tomorrow and try to improve.”

Dani Pedrosa
Combined Free Practice Classification
Pos. Rider Num Nation Team Time/Gap
1
RINS
Alex 42 SPA Team Suzuki Ecstar 1'59.608
2
DOVIZIOSO
Andrea 4 ITA Ducati Team 1'59.697 / 0.089
3
MARQUEZ
Marc 93 SPA Repsol Honda Team 1'59.701 / 0.093
4
ROSSI
Valentino 46 ITA Movistar Yamaha MotoGP 1'59.767 / 0.159
5
MILLER
Jack 43 AUS Alma Pramac Racing 1'59.771 / 0.163
6
VINALES
Maverick 25 SPA Movistar Yamaha MotoGP 1'59.802 / 0.194

Source: Honda Racing Corporation

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