Second row for Marquez in wet qualifying

·@marcmarcquez93: “I am gradually regaining strength”

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The second day of practice for the Malaysian Grand Prix saw Marc Marquez back in action, having recovered from the gastroenteritis which had hampered his Friday efforts. He was second in FP3 –improving his time from yesterday– and fastest in FP4, held after an intense shower typical at Sepang. In the qualifying session, with the track steadily drying out, the Repsol Honda team rider finished fourth with a time of 2:11.874. He was 0.389 off pole position, taken by Andrea Dovizioso. Hiroshi Aoyama, who made progress throughout the day, stopped the clock at 2:14.179 and will start from the sixth row of the grid, in seventeenth position.

Marc Márquez

“Today has been a good day; I feel rather better than yesterday, thanks to the doctors, and that’s important. I am gradually regaining strength and I’m sure tomorrow I will be better still. In the morning, in the dry, I felt good. In the afternoon, as we missed yesterday’s session in the wet, we felt it a little. However, in FP4 I felt pretty good, although for Q2 I still wanted to do better and for that reason we made a couple of changes to the setup – which didn’t end up working as we were hoping for. Anyway I think that in both dry and wet conditions we are ready to fight for the podium.”

Hiroshi Aoyama

“I had hoped the two sessions today would be dry but in the end, like yesterday, we had mixed conditions. In the dry we are a little less comfortable than in the wet, but in both cases I feel the same: I need some more confidence with the front. We will work to improve on this aspect, and for this we will try out some things in the warm-up. Today we have progressed from yesterday and tomorrow we will try to continue in this way to keep improving.”