Márquez starts French GP weekend in second position and Pedrosa in eighth

It was a positive first day but we need to keep working, as we want to improve a bit of everything

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Marc Márquez led the first Free Practice session and finished 168 thousandths of a second off the fastest rider in FP2, placing second after a consistent first day in France.

Repsol Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa improved almost a second between the first and second Free Practice in which he set the eighth fastest time.

Both tried the new fairings approved before the Grand Prix and run at the Jerez and Mugello tests.

Marc Márquez

“Luckily we had two full dry sessions to start our work on the bike, and the weather forecasts are also pretty good for the rest of the weekend—not really a given here in Le Mans. So we had the opportunity to work on our race setup, and we concentrated on trying to understand the tyres. We tried all the rear tyres, and we just missed trying the hard front, which we want to check tomorrow. Today I did my fastest time with the hard rear spec, which had about 10 laps on it. It was a positive first day but we need to keep working, as we want to improve a bit of everything in the setup since everything seems really, really tight here.”

Dani Pedrosa

“Today I struggled a little to find a good pace because I was feeling a bit sore after testing for two days following the crash in Jerez. I wasn’t 100 per cent physically when I got on my bike this morning, so we didn’t start so well. Then we improved little by little and finished better in the afternoon, which is positive. I tried the new aerodynamics in my last run, and at this track in particular, that seems to offer a bit of help in controlling the wheelies. The bike seems more balanced in general, but we want to work on it more to understand things better. Tomorrow we’ll focus on the tyres, and we’ll try to adjust a few details in the bike’s setup.”