Barely in the top ten for the entire weekend, Alex Marquez continues to put together one of his toughest weekends of the season, with three Hondas pitting against each other in the second quarter.
With low morning temperatures, the schedule for the Aragon GP changed for the remainder of the weekend. Free practice 3 started at 10:55 a.m. local time – one hour later than planned. It was only 10 ° C ambient when the pit lane opened, but the track had managed to reach 14 ° C. Lap times would continue to improve as the day progressed, dropping to half the second of Marc Marquez’s record of 1’46.635.
With the delay allowing temperatures to rise, the riders were able to produce faster times by the end of Free Training 3 and spark a late fiery battle for the top ten. Alex Marquez had remained constant throughout practice and drove a strong final lap to end up as the fifth fastest driver overall. Alex drove straight to the second quarter for the first time and set a fastest time of 1’48.189 – his fastest lap so far on the MotorLand Aragon circuit.
It’s not only his best starting position of the season, but also eleventh place. Alex qualifies as a leading rookie and ahead of a number of seasoned MotoGP activists. Alex and the Repsol Honda Team show their brand-strong racing pace during all training sessions and are looking forward to another strong race on Sunday.
Stefan Bradl did well in the cooler conditions of the morning and spent most of the two training sessions in solid steps in the top 15. Bradl will start the first quarter with a 1’49.166 as 21st. The German was unable to drive a strong individual lap during the 15-minute session. With his promising racing pace from earlier in the day, Bradl remains optimistic that he will make up for the ground again when the lights go out.
Cal Crutchlow was back in shape after an injury-related start to the year, securing his front row position since the 2019 American Grand Prix. After finishing seventh on his final lap, Nakagami finished seventh, Honda machines ranked three of the top 12 places occupy bars on Sunday.
The completely revised schedule is for the 23-lap Aragon GP to begin at 3:00 p.m. local time after the 11:00 a.m. warm-up.