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I felt good and strong
On their first encounter with the new asphalt at the Sachsenring circuit, the Repsol Honda riders rode 2 seconds faster than they did last year in practice –and almost matched their times from Q2 in 2016.
A brief and intense shower drenched the track just before FP2 and again halfway through the session, meaning the riders used wet tyres for the entire practice.
Marc Márquez set the second fastest time in completely wet conditions, followed by teammate Dani Pedrosa in third.
Marc Márquez
Today was really positive. I felt good and strong in the dry this morning and also in the wet this afternoon. That’s important, as here you never know which conditions you’ll have to face. It now seems that it will be dry tomorrow and Sunday, but we can’t know for certain. We started from a good base with the setup, and I felt comfortable. Now we must pay attention to keep improving along with the track conditions; I think the new asphalt will get better step by step, and that could change everything. In the wet the grip was already amazing, and we were able to be around four seconds faster than last year. In the dry I think the potential is there, but with the asphalt still very new, it was a bit slippery. Anyway, we’ll see what the weather is like tomorrow, but we know that we’re already good enough in every condition.
Dani Pedrosa
We’ve had a positive start to the weekend. We had the opportunity to ride in the dry and in the wet, and we were able to lap well enough in both conditions. I’m happy with this but we still have work to do on the bike’s setup and on the tyres, to understand which one will be better for Sunday. We expected the weather to stay dry in the afternoon but that wasn’t the case, so we weren’t able to continue our work. Hopefully tomorrow we’ll be luckier with the weather. Anyway, at least I had the chance to lap at length in the rain and the feeling was good, as the new asphalt was quite grippy in those conditions.