Japanese GP Practice Results

The MotoGP World Championship has arrived at Mobility Resort Motegi for the fourteenth round of the season. The first day of the Japanese Grand Prix ended with Brad Binder (KTM) the dominant force, with a time of 1:43.489. Pecco Bagnaia (Ducati) and Aleix Espargaró (Aprilia) completed the Top 3 on the timesheets.

The other riders who will go directly into Q2 were: Jorge Martín (Ducati), Marco Bezzecchi (Ducati), Fabio Di Giannantonio (Ducati), Johann Zarco (Ducati), Maverick Viñales (Aprilia), Pol Espargaró (KTM) and Jack Miller (KTM).

The second day of action at Motegi will get underway at 3:10 (CEST) with FP2. Qualifying will be at 3:50 (CEST) and the sprint race at 8:00 (CEST).

First day of work for the Repsol Honda Team

The Repsol Honda Team riders arrived in Japan motivated to continue accumulating good results after their performance at the Indian Grand Prix.

Marc Márquez finished the first session in 13th position, and found a feeling with the bike and the track for the rest of the weekend. In the afternoon session, he was amongst the Top 10 for much of the duration, but a crash in the final stages prevented him from improving his times and going directly into Q2, as he finished 14th.

Joan Mir started the day in good form, finishing FP1 in fifth position. However, in the afternoon, he failed to make the cut for Q2, finishing in 12th position, and he will also be forced to go through Q1 on Saturday.

Japanese GP Practice Results

Statements

Marc Márquez

“Today was a day where there was the possibility to go straight to Q2, I had the speed but there were a few mistakes. On the first tyre I made a mistake on the last corner and with the second tyre where were yellow flags. I didn’t see the yellow flag so didn’t know my lap was cancelled, then I was pushing to improve on my lap time again and I lost the front at Turn 1. Aside from this it wasn’t too bad a day, the feeling was positive and the pace is not looking too bad. Tomorrow we will keep the bike more or less the same and focus more on my riding style and the lines we are using.”

Joan Mir

“The crash we had this morning was not a big one but it complicated things a little bit. We were trying a few things with the bike I crashed on. In the afternoon we started with the bike we had in India, but I spent some of the session trying the bikes instead of working hard on a specific setup. I think we lost a bit here and this is why we aren’t in Q2 but still we were close. I think we need to work on improving the braking a little bit in order to keep improving tomorrow. The objective for tomorrow is to improve this and to challenge for Q2, then we will see what’s possible.”