Pedrosa Outpaces Marquez In Qatar MotoGP Free Practice 1

Troy Siahaan
by Troy Siahaan

From a Repsol Honda press release.

The 2016 MotoGP World Championship officially commenced this evening in Qatar, with a single free-practice session for the premier class. Rain had fallen on-and-off all day Wednesday, but the track was in generally good condition when action got underway at 8:55 p.m. Thursday local time.

At the end of the 45 minute session, Repsol Honda Team riders Dani Pedrosa and Marc Marquez were classified seventh and eight respectively, with Dani setting his fastest time of 1’56.098 on his seventh lap and Marc recording a 1’56.258 time on his 15th and final lap.

FP2 and FP3 will commence tomorrow at 6 p.m. and 8:55 p.m. local time, respectively.

Dani Pedrosa

7TH 1’56.098
“Luckily, the track was in good condition and this practice was a useful start for us to gather information, because we started working on the setup we used on the last day of test and then decided to try a big change. We need to work more on this idea and I hope tomorrow we’ll be able to build on it. We’ll study the data we’ve gathered very thoroughly in order to improve in the direction we feel could make the bike faster. We’ll try to reduce the gap, tenth by tenth, working on power delivery and chassis settings.”

Marc Marquez

8TH 1’56.258
“Today the 2016 season started for real. It was not the easiest FP1 I’ve ridden in, but we tried to improve gradually. The feeling was not very good, but we worked hard and we tried a lot of things out, so now we have to see what has changed between the test and today. We know that in Qatar the track conditions change a lot, so we will try to continue to evolve and get close to the top riders.”

FP1 Results

Pos.RiderNumNationTeamTime/Gap
1LORENZO Jorge99SPAMovistar Yamaha MotoGP1’55.440
2ROSSI Valentino46ITAMovistar Yamaha MotoGP1’55.707
3IANNONE Andrea29ITADucati Team1’55.736
4BARBERA Hector8SPAAvintia Racing1’55.810
5VINALES Maverick25SPATeam Suzuki Ecstar1’55.847
6ESPARGARO Pol44SPAMonster Yamaha Tech 31’56.051
7PEDROSA Dani26SPARepsol Honda Team1’56.098
8MARQUEZ Marc93SPARepsol Honda Team1’56.258
9DOVIZIOSO Andrea4ITADucati Team1’56.387
10REDDING Scott45GBROcto Pramac Racing1’56.412
11SMITH Bradley38GBRMonster Yamaha Tech 31’56.524
12CRUTCHLOW Cal35GBRLCR Honda1’56.596
13BAZ Loris76FRAAvintia Racing1’56.783
14MILLER Jack43AUSMarc VDS Racing Team1’56.939
15PETRUCCI Danilo9ITAOcto Pramac Racing1’56.981
16ESPARGARO Aleix41SPATeam Suzuki Ecstar1’57.096
17BAUTISTA Alvaro19SPAAprilia Racing Team Gresini1’57.129
18HERNANDEZ Yonny68COLAspar MotoGP Team1’57.192
19LAVERTY Eugene50IREAspar MotoGP Team1’57.421
20RABAT Tito53SPAEstrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS1’57.916
21BRADL Stefan6GERAprilia Racing Team Gresini1’57.989
Troy Siahaan
Troy Siahaan

Troy's been riding motorcycles and writing about them since 2006, getting his start at Rider Magazine. From there, he moved to Sport Rider Magazine before finally landing at Motorcycle.com in 2011. A lifelong gearhead who didn't fully immerse himself in motorcycles until his teenage years, Troy's interests have always been in technology, performance, and going fast. Naturally, racing was the perfect avenue to combine all three. Troy has been racing nearly as long as he's been riding and has competed at the AMA national level. He's also won multiple club races throughout the country, culminating in a Utah Sport Bike Association championship in 2011. He has been invited as a guest instructor for the Yamaha Champions Riding School, and when he's not out riding, he's either wrenching on bikes or watching MotoGP.

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