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The first day of the Spanish Grand Prix took place under completely clear skies and with good temperatures, a respite for the teams after last weekend’s unstable weather in Portugal. For the Repsol Honda Team, it was a positive initial day for Pol Espargaró and a somewhat tricky one for Marc Márquez.
With a best time of 1:37.590 thousandths, Espargaró finished the first day in Jerez in seventh place. The Repsol Honda Team rider carried out various setup experiments to improve the performance of his Honda RC213V, and provisionally secured a place in Q2.
Márquez made progress during the first Free Practice sessions of the Grand Prix weekend. On a difficult day for the Repsol Honda Team rider, a best time of 1:38.200 placed him 19th. Márquez suffered two small crashes in FP2 and will have to improve his time in the first practice session on Saturday to avoid having to go through Q1.
Rider Statements
“Today we took a little bit of a risk to try some big things. In the morning I rode with more or less the same bike to start building my pace because the track was not in the best condition. In the afternoon I tried some other things and unfortunately, I crashed on the bike I was feeling good with and I couldn’t continue, then the second bike was a big change because we were trying some things and I did not feel well on it. We need to improve and close the distance to the front, tomorrow is the day to come back to what we know take the maximum amount we can before testing again on Monday.”
“It’s time to focus on riding the bike so we can move forward, that’s the objective for the weekend. We are here to do our best and keep working, that’s what we did today. There were some things that we tried in FP1 and FP2, but during a race weekend you’re very tight on time so you have to find the balance. Our rhythm is looking quite good but we need to improve our one-lap speed a bit, half a second from Fabio is a bit too much. But there are some spots that are shinning so we can be pleased with the start we made.”