Gran Premio de la Republica Argentina

Round 3 - Friday, April 25th 2014

Argentina - Practice Report

Weather conditions

Sunny Spells

23°C
Air temp

32°C
Track temp

52%
Humidity

Repsol Honda duo find their rhythm in Argentina to finish 1-2 in FP2

After a busy morning on a dirty track, Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa have made significant progress in this afternoon’s FP2 session, finishing first and second.

During this morning’s FP1 they chose to remain on the same soft rear tyre for the entire session whilst they adapted to the new track, whereas every other MotoGP rider put a fresh tyre on at the end of the session, thus demoting Marc and Dani to 14th and 16th respectively.

However, this afternoon on a cleaner track, both riders made substantial gains with Marc, who was over a second faster than anyone else, improving his time by 5.790s (FP1: 1’45.103) to 1’39.313 on lap 16 of 18, and Dani shaving 5.328s off his time with 1’40.396 on lap 18 of 18 (FP1: 1’45.724). What made this even more notable was the fact they recorded these impressive times on the hard rear Bridgestone tyre (and medium front).

Team Quotes

1st - 1'39.313

“It was a fun day, it is always interesting to learn all the different corners and their secrets at a new track and the practice sessions go by more quickly. Maybe the day was affected by the first session, in which we sacrificed putting in a fast lap in order to keep the same tyre on during the entire session. That was to enable us to keep more tyres for the remainder of the weekend. This afternoon we were able to have a more normal practice session and the track had improved a lot. The tyre durability also seemed much greater than before, and I think that it will continue improving as the weekend goes on. I am happy with how this first day went and with the base that we have. We shall continue working in the same way, as we are aware that tomorrow's times will be much closer”

2nd - 1'40.396

"Overall this was a good first day, because we were able to try out the track in dry conditions. The asphalt was very dirty this morning and the tyres were getting destroyed immediately so we weren't able to make much progress. In the afternoon the asphalt was better and we had an opportunity to put in some laps, testing things out with the bike and with the track. We were able to ride more consistently and gather data that will allow us to improve again tomorrow”

practice results

Gran Premio de la Republica Argentina - Round 3

Pos.	Rider	Num.	Nation	Team	Constructor	Time/Gap
1	Marc Marquez	93	ESP	Repsol Honda Team	HONDA	1'39.313
2	Dani Pedrosa	26	ESP	Repsol Honda Team	HONDA	1'40.396
3	Aleix Espargaro	41	ESP	NGM Mobile Forward Racing	YAMAHA	1'40.566
4	Stefan Bradl	6	GER	LCR Honda MotoGP	HONDA	1'40.891
5	Andrea Dovizioso	4	ITA	Ducati Team	DUCATI	1'41.042
6	Bradley Smith	38	GBR	Monster Yamaha Tech 3	YAMAHA	1'41.303
7	Pol Espargaro	44	ESP	Monster Yamaha Tech 3	YAMAHA	1'41.368
8	Valentino Rossi	46	ITA	Yamaha Factory	YAMAHA	1'41.395
9	Jorge Lorenzo	99	ESP	Yamaha Factory Racing	YAMAHA	1'41.533
10	Andrea Iannone	29	ITA	Pramac Racing	DUCATI	1'41.924
11	Alvaro Bautista	19	ESP	Go & Fun Honda Gresini	HONDA	1'42.029
12	Yonny Hernandez	68	COL	Pramac Racing	DUCATI	1'42.128
13	Karel Abraham	17	CZE	Cardion AB Motoracing	HONDA	1'42.348
14	Colin Edwards	5	USA	NGM Mobile Forward Racing	YAMAHA	1'42.608
15	Nicky Hayden	69	USA	Drive M7 Aspar	HONDA	1'42.621
16	Hector Barbera	8	ESP	Avintia Racing MotoGP	FTR-KAWASAKI	1'42.739
17	Broc Parkes	23	AUS	Paul Bird Motorsport	PBM	1'42.827
18	Michele Pirro	51	ITA	Ducati Team	DUCATI	1'42.898
19	Danilo Petrucci	9	ITA	IodaRacing Project	IODA-SUTER	1'43.106
20	Mike Di Meglio	63	FRA	Avintia Racing MotoGP	FTR-KAWASAKI	1'43.125
21	Michael Laverty	70	GBR	Paul Bird Motorsport	ART & PBM	1'43.151
22	Scott Redding	45	GBR	Go & Fun Honda Gresini	HONDA	1'43.165
23	Hiroshi Aoyama	7	JPN	Drive M7 Aspar	HONDA	1'43.347