Repsol Honda's Marquez 5th & Pedrosa 8th in MotoGP Day 2 Practice of Season-Opening Round in Qatar

Press Release www.repsolhondateam.com Grand Prix of Qatar Round 1 - Friday, March 21st 2014   Qatar - Practice Report Weather conditions Dry 22°C Air temp 25°C Track temp 65% Humidity Improvements for Marquez and Pedrosa on day two in Qatar Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa enjoyed a productive second day of the 2014 season at the Losail Circuit in Qatar. Marc, who took some painkillers today (but no injection) to ease the pain from his injury, completed a total of 32 laps today, recording his fastest time of 1’55.446 in FP3 placing him 5th in the combined times. Teammate Dani, recorded his fastest time of 1’55.562 in FP2 and completed 34 laps in total, finishing 8th for the day. Both Marc and Dani remained on the soft rear tyre in both sessions. The riders will be back on track tomorrow for FP4 at 19h55 local time, and have confirmed their spot in Q2 which will take place at 21h00. Team Quotes 5th - 1'55.446 “The day went pretty well. Besides not being as high up the timesheet as I would have liked, I'm happy because my leg felt much better than yesterday. We’ll see if things continue in this way tomorrow, as I had a little more strength today and less pain. We have also improved our setup, although we still have room for improvement with the bike and also myself. Tomorrow we shall continue working in the same way with a focus on the race. Qualifying is going to be difficult, because the Open class riders have a softer tyre available, but the important thing is the race” 8th - 1'55.562 “I am working on improving everything a little: my one-off lap times, my overall pace, my feeling with the tyre and also my feeling with different fuel amounts in the tank. We are focusing on many things with very little time available. At the moment we haven’t taken a big step forward, so we hope to keep up our steady progress and not to get worse in any aspect. We have chances of getting a top time tomorrow, but I have to work on my fast laps in order to do so. There are riders setting very quick times so far, and I’m sure that the qualifying session will be tough!” practice results   Grand Prix of Qatar - Round 1 Pos. Rider Num. Nation Team Constructor Time/Gap 1 Aleix Espargaro 41 ESP NGM Mobile Forward Racing YAMAHA 1'54.773 2 Andrea Iannone 29 ITA Pramac Racing DUCATI 1'55.186 3 Alvaro Bautista 19 ESP Go & Fun Honda Gresini HONDA 1'55.240 4 Andrea Dovizioso 4 ITA Ducati Team DUCATI 1'55.250 5 Marc Marquez 93 ESP Repsol Honda Team HONDA 1'55.446 6 Bradley Smith 38 GBR Monster Yamaha Tech 3 YAMAHA 1'55.474 7 Jorge Lorenzo 99 ESP Yamaha Factory Racing YAMAHA 1'55.495 8 Dani Pedrosa 26 ESP Repsol Honda Team HONDA 1'55.562 9 Stefan Bradl 6 GER LCR Honda MotoGP HONDA 1'55.676 10 Valentino Rossi 46 ITA Yamaha Factory YAMAHA 1'55.702 11 Pol Espargaro 44 ESP Monster Yamaha Tech 3 YAMAHA 1'55.793 12 Cal Crutchlow 35 GBR Ducati Team DUCATI 1'56.013 13 Colin Edwards 5 USA NGM Mobile Forward Racing YAMAHA 1'56.238 14 Nicky Hayden 69 USA Drive M7 Aspar HONDA 1'56.357 15 Yonny Hernandez 68 COL Pramac Racing DUCATI 1'56.633 16 Hiroshi Aoyama 7 JPN Drive M7 Aspar HONDA 1'56.939 17 Scott Redding 45 GBR Go & Fun Honda Gresini HONDA 1'56.997 18 Karel Abraham 17 CZE Cardion AB Motoracing HONDA 1'57.345 19 Broc Parkes 23 AUS Paul Bird Motorsport PBM 1'57.665 20 Mike Di Meglio 63 FRA Avintia Racing MotoGP FTR-KAWASAKI 1'58.204 21 Hector Barbera 8 ESP Avintia Racing MotoGP FTR-KAWASAKI 1'58.219 22 Michael Laverty 70 GBR Paul Bird Motorsport ART & PBM 1'58.378 23 Danilo Petrucci 9 ITA IodaRacing Project IODA-SUTER 1'58.651 Copyright Free Images For more images please click here Circuit Information View circuit page at www.repsolhondateam.com Length 5.380 m / 3.343 miles Width 12m Left corners 6 Right corners 10 Longest straight 1.068 m / 0.664 miles Constructed 2004 Modified Losail International Circuit Al Wusail,North Relief Road Doha, Qatar T: +974 4472 9151 F: +974 4472 9246 www.circuitlosail.com Pole Position 1m 53.927s (170.003km/h) Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha, 2008) Race Lap 1m 55.153s (168.193km/h) Casey Stoner (Ducati, 2008) Race Time 42m 36.587s (166.665km/h) Casey Stoner (Ducati, 2008) 2012 Winner Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) 2013 Winner Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) If you have any questions please email press@hondaracing.co.jp   Honda Racing Corporation 3-15-1, Senzui, Asaka-shi, Saitama-Pref., 351-0024 Japan