Good first day for Marquez but still some improvements needed

Morning rain and plenty of wind on an overcast afternoon were the order of the day on Friday at Silverstone. Thankfully for the Moto2 field, the second practice session was a dry one. Marc Márquez displayed prudence on the first day of practice for the British GP, but still took the fourth fastest time on the combined timesheet.

Heavy rain required a conservative strategy in the morning and Márquez completed twelve laps of the long Silverstone circuit. His best time came on his tenth lap and he found himself leading the way, but five minutes before the end other riders moved ahead of him as the track became patchy. The Repsol rider elected to head back to the pits and leave his rivals too it, deciding that the risk was not worth it for the sake of lowering lap times. In the end, his best lap was a 2’26.149.

The wind picked up in the afternoon and the chance of rain was reduced. Lap times came tumbling down and Márquez was fast from the start. Never dropping out of the top four, the Spaniard recorded his top lap on his sixteenth time around from eighteen, stopping the clock at 2’09.553.

Marc Márquez
FP1 – 2:26.149, 12 laps, 71 km.
FP2 – 2:09.553, 16 laps, 94 km.
“I think that we had a good day. I felt pretty comfortable in the morning session, which is important bearing in mind that the forecast is not the best for the next couple of days. The afternoon was dry, the track was cold and it was windy, but I also felt good. We tried out a few things and have an idea about which direction we should take.

This was a productive session in the afternoon, because if it rains all day tomorrow and the race ends up being dry, then we will have some dry track time under our belts. We shall see if we are lucky tomorrow and enjoy another dry day, in order to try out a few more things to give us this small step forward that we need”.

Source: Repsol Media Press Release