Rookie Marc Marquez topped private MotoGP pre–season testing in Austin

MotoGP giants Honda and Yamaha held a private pre–season test at the new track in Austin, Texas. The test had 5 riders namely  Valentino Rossi & Jorge Lorenzo of Yamaha Factory Racing and  Dani Pedrosa & Marc Marquez of Repsol Factory Honda alongwith Honda Satellite Works rider Stefan Bradl. The track also saw couple of American CRT riders in the 3 day test.

As the track was realitively new and fresh for the MotoGP riders it was rookie Marc Marquez who topped all three days of the testing beating fellow team–mate Dani Pedrosa and Yamaha Factory riders Lorenzo and Rossi.

The Yamaha riders ended their test in the 2nd day after collecting some important data while the Honda riders took full use of the 3days test.

With rookie Marquez so strong in the pre–season testing it sure is going to be a total exciting with battles between rivals Pedrosa and Lorenzo and between the legend Rossi and the rookie Marquez.   

Marc Marquez – HRC Repsol Honda - 1st  2'03.357

"This morning has been quite good, from the beginning the grip on the track wasn´t too bad. We found our rhythm pretty qucikly and we began to try a few things that we first tired yesterday and saw that they could be better and we confirmed these feelings. So at the moment everything is going well and now we will plan our final programme for the afternoon session"

Dani Pedrosa – HRC Repsol Honda - 2nd 2'03.898
"We didn´t do anything too special this morning, just confirmed some settings with the rear shock from yesterday and some other setup items. Now we have the final session this afternoon to finish our programme before we leave"

Jorge Lorenzo –  Yamaha Factory Racing - 4th 2:07.388

“I think it’s very important to come here and learn the track. I haven’t learnt 100% of it, I need more laps to learn my lines, but for the moment it’s a very beautiful track which is very complete with every kind of corner.

In the beginning it was difficult to understand the lines but I have improved 3 seconds from the first lap today, that means it´s a hard track to learn and a difficult track to go to the maximum on. I think it helps more than some other places to have this extra time. I think three or four practices before the race will not be enough to understand it so some of the riders who didn’t come here will have a little disadvantage.

The wind has been a little bit of a problem, especially on the longer straight where you arrive over 340km/h, you feel a lot of unstable feelings. Almost all the track is tricky, there’s some very hard braking and also tight hairpins. The first sector is flowing but it is very hard to find a good line because it’s blind.

We’re getting used to the track but also trying to solve a problem at maximum lean where we don’t have full confidence. We have to change the setting a bit to make it better. The tarmac is not perfect with only four bikes on it to clean it so it’s difficult to understand if it’s very grippy or not. It’s hard to know if it will be much better at the race weekend or just a little bit.”

Valentino Rossi –  Yamaha Factory Racing - 5th 2:07.924

“I really like the track, my first impression is that it is beautiful. It’s very flowing with a lot of fast corners and a lot of change of direction; it is fun on the bike! There are three hairpins that are very tight; this is better for Formula 1 overtaking, but for us they are a bit slow. In general the track is good. There is some downhill and uphill and first braking zone is very good.

We have to understand which tyre to use, but the asphalt surface doesn´t have any rubber on it at the moment so there is not so much grip at the moment. The uphill at turn one helps to stop the bike, which is beautiful. For me turn two is the best though and after you enter into the chicane which is very similar to Silverstone. The straight is very long, which is maybe good for overtaking.

The city is great, the atmosphere is very good so I think it is a very good place for a race. It´s very important to have this time as the track is so difficult, there are a lot of blind corners where you have to understand where to brake.

We will continue to work on the line to understand the track and also to increase the rear grip on the bike as we suffer in acceleration. The first feeling is positive.

It’s important for MotoGP to have a third race in America, we have a lot of good riders from the USA so it’s right to be here.”