MotoGP World Championship rookie Alex Marquez showed the progress he had made in testing and posted consistent and competitive times on Friday. Unfortunately, Stefan Bradl’s Emilia Romagna GP comes to an early end.
Typical Misano weather welcomed the MotoGP class again as they rolled onto the 4.2 kilometer track for another race weekend. With a race and a test day before this weekend, the premier class is now very familiar with the racetrack.
This familiarity paid off for Alex Marquez, who was faster than his qualifying time after just a few laps of morning practice. His 1’32.437 from Free Practice 1 was already 0.9 seconds faster than his qualifying time and he would eventually improve to 1’32.369 in the afternoon. By confirming what he and the team found during testing, the MotoGP newbie is confident that these improvements will continue over the weekend. With just 0.7 seconds between the top 18 riders, Alex isn’t worried about his final position as he continues to work on improving his already strong racing pace.
On the other side of the garage, Stefan Bradl continued to have problems with his right arm in the early stages of Misano’s second weekend and, along with HRC, decided to retire from the weekend. Stefan felt he was unable to drive safely and consistently and will turn his attention to returning to the Catalonia GP in a week’s time.
Takaaki Nakagami was back in good shape when the LCR Honda rider finished free practice 2 just 0.002 seconds from the top spot. 0.071 seconds separated the five best drivers at the end of Friday.
Alex Marquez will return to the circuit as the sole representative of the Repsol Honda team at 09:55 local time on Saturday morning for Free Practice 3.