Marc Marquez 3rd, Dani Pedrosa 15th in challenging Sachsenring practice

The MotoGP World Championship season reaches its halfway point this weekend with the German Grand Prix, which began on Friday at Sachsenring amidst low temperatures and light rain.

Under these conditions, riders barely had track time in Free Practice 1, and he Repsol Honda duo of Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa put in 6 and 7 laps, respectively. In the second session, series leader Marquez finished third on the timesheets -after completing 18 laps and setting a best time of 1:22.775.

Repsol Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa put in 18 laps, and on the eighth of these he stopped the clock at 1:23.740, placing fifteenth.

Marc Marquez
“Today was a good day, although the way that it began was a little strange. In the first session we were only able to do a few laps because it started to rain slightly, but it wasn’t heavy enough to put on wet tyres. The second session was more-or-less normal, although there were low temperatures and a very cold track. We had to dial things back a little, especially at turn 11, where many riders crashed. Nevertheless, I felt quite comfortable with the bike. We want to improve on some points and have to keep working, because the forecast for tomorrow is that temperatures will improve slightly. It will be an interesting Grand Prix because of the weather, and the prediction is that on Sunday we’ll have a situation like today, when rain could fall at any time.”

Dani Pedrosa
“Today was a very tough day because the track temperature was very low. I was riding on the limit and I saw several riders crash, especially in turn 11. Riding fast wasn’t possible, so we decided against taking risks under the circumstances. Hopefully tomorrow the weather improves, and we’ll continue working to recover our pace and try to place high up on the timesheets.”

Source: Repsol Media