Positive first day for Pedrosa and Marquez in Jerez

The Grand Prix of Spain got underway today in perfect conditions at the Jerez Circuit in the south of Spain.

Repsol Honda riders Dani Pedrosa and Marc Marquez made full use of the two 45 minute free practice sessions. Both riders spent the morning FP1 session on the soft rear compound and soft front compound Bridgestone tyres, as they rediscovered their feelings for the Andalusian circuit where they tested during the preseason.

In the afternoon’s FP2 session, both swapped to the hard front compound and tested the hard compound rear tyre but Dani was unable to better his morning time of 1’39.704 and finished the day 2nd fastest. Marc also tested the hard rear tyre in the afternoon, but then swapped back to a new soft rear to record his fastest time of the day of 1’39.889 on lap 15 of 20 placing him 5th in the combined times.

Dani Pedrosa – 2nd – 1’39.704
“Today we were able to get some good laps in at this circuit. We tried the soft and the hard tyre, and also some things with the suspension settings. It wasn’t bad, generally, although we need to keep working on this in order to get the bike more stable – both on the entrance and exit of the corners. That would allow us to ride at a faster pace. We will also need to prepare well for qualifying, which could be very tight”

Marc Marquez – 5th – 1’39.889
“Today was the first day of practice here in Jerez and everything went pretty well. Yesterday I said in the press conference that it would be a little difficult at this track but, to tell the truth, things went better for me here than I was expecting. We have grown stronger with every lap and I think that the key is to keep calm. In the morning it was a little difficult to control my nerves, but later I tried to calm down and follow our normal strategy. Tomorrow we will have to focus in order to improve, as the rest of the riders will be going all-out”

Source: Repsol Honda Team