Marquez: After 1m58 comes a crash!

Marc Marquez ended the three day test in Sepang with the fastest time after a scintillating run to start the day in Malaysia. The reigning world champion broke the lap record and ended the day over one tenth of a second faster than his Repsol Honda teammate, Dani Pedrosa.

After the session Marquez, who finished the week having completed 182 laps, admitted that he took advantage of near perfect track conditions to set his fastest time:

“The feeling was great and I didn’t expect, especially after the first day, this lap time because the track looks bumpier than last year,” said Marquez. “But this morning on the third run I saw that it was a bit cloudy, the temperature was perfect, it never rained during these three days. This helps a lot.

“The track was faster than usual and for that reason came this lap time. Even so, when I saw ’58 I was really happy. But then I stopped in the box to cool down because I was thinking ‘after ’58 comes a crash!’ Then we continued working like usual.”

The single lap pace of Marquez shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone given his dominance of qualifying since entering the premier class but his longer race simulations will have left him knowing that there is still work to be done to be ready for the opening round of the championship in seven weeks time.

Pedrosa was able to set a more consistent pace today than Marquez however the champion commented that on his longer runs he was working on different setup options, “During the race simulation I tried many different options on the electronics, in the front also we tried different things but we saw it was better what we had.”

The second Sepang test will take place in two weeks.