Both Marc Marquez and Pol Espargaro worked all day to improve the driving experience of their respective Hondas, with difficult conditions obscuring their progress.
The conditions were undoubtedly wet when the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix started on Friday and the rain kept getting heavier throughout Free Practice 1. Both riders on the Repsol Honda Team went straight to work in the wet conditions as the predictions for the rest of the weekend remain mixed. Marc Marquez and Pol Espargaro improved their times over the course of the session and got faster despite the rain falling.
Marquez finished Free Practice 1 in second place and was once again able to demonstrate the speed he had in wet conditions all year round. The conditions improved slowly but steadily over the course of the day, the sun even appeared briefly in Free Practice 2, but the track stayed wet. Marquez improved his time by 0.9 seconds and finished the second Friday session in 14th and 14th overall. The eight-time world champion is confident that he did not show his full potential in the wet today and is ready to work on improving himself tomorrow no matter what the weather turns out to be.
With 1’45.204 minutes in free practice, Espargaro finished the morning 15th, 1.4 seconds behind his teammate. A brief fall at Turn 13 resulted in Espargaro running away uninjured, the # 44 quickly returning to the Repsol Honda team garage and driving off in his second RC213V. Despite the fall, Espargaro made massive gains in the afternoon session, improving his best lap by over 1.5 seconds and more than halving the gap to Marquez. Still, there is more to come from Espargaro, who wants to show his speed in Misano because he is looking for more grip on the rear wheel.
The action on the Misano circuit continues on Saturday with 3rd free practice, one final chance to finish in the combined top ten for a Q2 spot, starting at 9:55 a.m. local time. The prognoses again predict a high probability of rain, today’s lessons have to be put into practice again.