The weather was once again the topic of conversation at the Red Bull Ring, because the paddock experienced four seasons in one day. Marc Marquez and Pol Espargaro took ninth and eleventh places overall and showed impressive speeds in the wet.
The sun was shining all day at the Red Bull Ring, but that didn’t prevent a heavy downpour of rain just before Free Practice 2. A weekend in Austria means being prepared for all conditions and the Repsol Honda Team was first and second when the track was the wettest after starting the weekend at a decent dry pace.
Marc Marquez had a busy start to the day when he returned to the Red Bull Ring on his Honda RC213V and completed 22 laps of Free Practice 1. With a best time of 1’23.967 he finished ninth in front of the Styrian GP winner Jorge Martin and got a provisional Q2 slot. When a sudden and heavy downpour hit the track just before Free Practice 2, Marquez’s top ten time from the morning looked even more valuable. Despite not improving his overall time, Marquez was quick in the wet with a 1’31.353 that kept him at the top of the timesheet until the last moment of the session.
For Pol Espargaro, Friday in Austria started well under a clear sky as he and his Repsol Honda team worked to improve the set-up of his bike after a difficult past weekend. 11th in the session, the # 44 worked with used tires throughout. In the afternoon Espargaro was able to prove his speed again in the wet, got faster and faster in the course of the session and stayed in contact with his teammate. It was only in the last minutes of the session, when other drivers were fitting slick tires, that Espargaro fell back from second place and ended the afternoon in eighth place and the day in eleventh place overall.