Marc Marquez spoiled Ducati’s afternoon on the first day of practice for Sunday’s Aragon GP, setting a couple of scorching laps to head the time sheets after the Italian bikes had dominated in the morning.
The Repsol Honda rider was the first to cut under the 1m48s barrier, but was obliged to go faster still as another four riders joined him.
His closest challenger had been Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso, until second factory Ducati rider Jorge Lorenzo—who had been languishing in 10th—made his time attack in the closing stages of the afternoon’s FP2.
The three main men of recent races were covered by less than half a second, at the fine and varied 2.6-mile circuit outside Alcaniz, where hot conditions were promised to continue into tomorrow, ensuring a second chance for all to get into the crucial top 10 to go straight into Q2 in the afternoon.
The other two riders under 1’48 were the on-form independent Honda rider Cal Crutchlow (LCR Castrol Honda), and Ecstar Suzuki’s Andrea Iannone, who had earlier led the standings.
Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) was seventh, ahead of Alvaro Bautista’s Angel Nieto Ducati and Valentino Rossi (Movistar Yamaha). His teammate Maverick Vinales was one place and five hundredths slower, but the pair more than one second down on Marquez, suggesting the long-awaited revival for Yamaha will not be on the cards this weekend, in spite of Vinales’s optimism yesterday, and fifth-fastest time this morning.
Franco Morbidelli (EG VDS Honda) was just a 10th behind in 11th, while the afternoon’s worst loser was Jack Miller, down in 12th, after placing third in the morning.
“Today we worked quite well and improved a lot from morning to afternoon, especially with the rear tire,” said Marquez. “It was our first day at the track this season and we had to adjust the setting of the bike and the electronics. We must also keep working in this way tomorrow. In the end of FP2 everyone put on a new rear tire, even us. This was maybe the first Friday that we did that this year! It’s important for understanding the outcome of a few things we changed on the bike. Now we have less doubts, but also we want to reconfirm something tomorrow. Luckily the weather is fine, and actually very hot. Ducati has tested here so we don’t want to leave anything out in order to be at same level.”
Lorenzo said, “I’m satisfied with today, especially because we made a step forward and we improved our performance from the morning to the afternoon. I felt really good on the bike, especially in my final exits in FP2, and that’s a good sign. I think that the lap time I set will be good enough to take me though directly into Q2 and so tomorrow we will be able to focus on improving our pace and work in view of the race. Overall, I’m happy with the feeling and now we only have to sort out a few details and try and improve a bit in every corner.”
Dovizioso was satisfied with the day, as well. “Today has been very positive, because we were able to start off the day by immediately regaining the good feeling we had achieved in the test in August, and so now we’ve already got some pretty clear ideas about the tires and the set-up,” he said. “This will enable us to work on the details tomorrow because I think that the conditions will improve a bit and so we’ll be able to understand how the tires will really behave. As always we must try and be quick while consuming the tires as little as possible: in every track this is the characteristic, but here at Aragón it’s even more important. At the moment there are three of us who have a very similar pace, but it won’t be enough and so tomorrow we’ll have to improve a bit more.”
Fourth quickest on the day, Crutchlow, said, “Yeah, it was not too bad today, I felt quite good with the bike. We tried two different settings on the Honda today, both had some positives and negatives so we’re just in the middle of trying to build something in between. The bike felt good on the track and was working well.
“I made a big mistake on my fast lap when I ran into the back of Pol (Espargaro) at the last corner and went out of the track,” Cruthlow added, “but I still managed to do a decent lap time, so there’s some positives from that as we can probably gain three tenths on that time. I feel good, I have to continue to concentrate on our race set up and see how well we can qualify tomorrow.”
Moto2
The best two Moto2 times were set in the morning, with Marcel Schrotter staying on top on the Dynavolt Kalex in spite of not improving in the afternoon.
The same was true of points leader Pecco Bagnaia (SKY VR46 Kalex), who stayed in second place in spite of setting fastest afternoon time.
You had to go down to third overall for a rider who had gone quicker. Alex Marquez (EF-VDS Kalex) slipped in ahead of another morning trio—Sam Lowes (SII KTM), Fabio Quartararo (MB Speed Up) and Mattia Pasini (Italtrans Kalex.).
The rest of the top 10 had found something in the afternoon in spite of hotter conditions, with Brad Binder (Red Bull KTM) seventh, narrowly ahead of Andrea Locatelli (Italtrans Kalex), Simone Corsi (Tasca Kalex) and title challenger Miguel Oliveira (Red Bull KTM), who had been eighth in the morning.
“I’m satisfied with today’s result,” Bagnaia said. “We have done a great job, we are in the right direction for the race and we can make another small step forward tomorrow. It will be hard, the temperatures are very high, but since FP1 I managed to have a good pace. I have a quite clear idea about the race and I think I will opt for the hard one to be more competitive and constant.”
Moto3
Enea Bastianini put his Leopard Honda at the top of the Moto3 timesheets, upsetting the morning’s KTM lock-out. But the Austrian bikes took the next two positions, with Gabriel Rodrigo (RBA KTM) less than two tenths down, and Nicolo Bulega (SKY VR46 KTM) with a similar gap in third.
Points leader Jorge Martin (Del Conca Honda) narrowly failed in his late bid for the top spot, ending up fourth ahead of Niccolo Antonelli (SIC58 Honda) and Aron Canet (EG Honda), who had been a dubious starter after being involved in a multi-bike crash at the last race at Misano.
The winner there, Lorenzo Dalla Porta (Leopard Honda) was seventh, ahead of RBA-KTM rider Kazuto Masaki; with Jakub Kornfeil ninth, ahead of his Redox KTM’s team-mate and erstwhile points leader Marco Bezzecchi.
By Michael Scott
Photos GnG
