Pedrosa 3rd, Marquez 6th as Catalunya weekend gets underway

Round six of the 2013 Championship began today with the first two free practice sessions in preparation for Sunday’s race in Montmelò, Catalunya, and Repsol Honda riders Dani Pedrosa and Marc Marquez had a productive day aboard their Honda RC213V machines in very hot conditions.

In the morning session, with a track temperature of 33ºC and air temperature of 25ºC, both riders opted the soft front and soft rear Bridgestone tyres to take the first feelings from the 4.727km Spanish circuit. Dani completed 18 laps and was 2nd fastest with a lap of 1’42.445 and Marc was 9th fastest with 1’43.641 after 19 laps in his first appearance here on a MotoGP machine.

In the afternoon, temperatures rose to 49ºC on the track with an ambient temperature of 28ºC. Dani went out early in the session with a new hard front, keeping the soft rear from the morning session, but before long he changed for a fresh hard rear and although he was unable to improve his lap time from the morning, it was crucial to test how the hard tyre performed. He completed a total of 17 laps taking his fastest (with the hard rear) on lap 12 with 1’42.557, placing him 3rd in the combined times for the day.

Marc started the FP2 session as he left FP1, with soft rear and soft front, but he also changed for both hard option tyres and improved from the morning session by 0.784 with a time of 1’42.857 on lap 10 of 18, placing him 6th for the day.

Dani Pedrosa – 3rd – 1’42.445
“Above all today, we focused on testing tyres. We were able to ride some laps with the soft tyres and also the hards, in order to see which are best suited to the track. Getting the choice right is very important at this circuit, because it is always hot in the race and it is usually a key to managing this. The tyres suffer a little when we lean the bike over, but we are working on this issue. We still haven’t decided which compounds we will use, so we will see what tomorrow brings and then go from there”

Marc Marquez – 6th – 1’42.857
“I am pretty happy with how the day went. We followed the normal Friday agenda; in the first session we were ninth, over one second from the top, then in the second session we cut the gap to half a second and finished sixth in the combined times. I am very happy with the work that we have done, but we still have things to improve and there are points on the track where I am still not comfortable. I have to improve my adaptation to the circuit and some details with the setup but the most important thing is that we have cut the gap and are working in the right direction”

Source: Repsol Honda Team