A fair and sunny day welcomed Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa as the Red Bull GP of Spain got underway today in Jerez de la Frontera, the first European race of the season.

After realizing that the base setup he had started with in FP1 needed some adjustments to work as well as it had in the first three races, Marquez and his crew were quickly able to make the right choices to improve their pace in FP2, and to set the second-fastest time of the day, using the same set of tyres for the whole session.

Pedrosa had a more difficult day as he struggled to improve on the encouraging fourth-best lap time he had set in FP1, and he looks forward to the remaining sessions to take a step forward at a track he especially likes.

FP3 will commence tomorrow at 9:55 a.m. local time


Marc Marquez - 2nd 1'39.900

“I’m happy with how this first day went overall. In the first practice session we discovered that the base setup we had in place from other circuits wasn’t working completely well for us here, but we were able to react in FP2. We’ve improved a lot, but we have to keep working because I still don’t feel entirely comfortable. The important thing is that we’re not far off Jorge [Lorenzo], who is going fastest at the moment. Valentino [Rossi] has also been very consistent, but I’m happy with how the team have been working and how they reacted to issues, so we’ll see if we can take another step forward tomorrow.”

Dani Pedrosa - 9th 1'40.925

“Today was similar to the situation we’ve encountered at other races this season. Unfortunately we weren’t able to make too many improvements on that as we did at Austin for the race, but of course it’s only day 1 so we’ll keep working as best we can in order to find a solution and improve our pace. At the moment we’re mainly struggling with acceleration, and these bikes are so powerful that when you lose in that area you feel it a lot. What we’ve been doing today is riding with used tyres for the entirety, and tomorrow we’ll try and take a step forward.”





1   - LORENZO Jorge 99 SPA Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Yamaha 1'39.555
2   - MARQUEZ Marc 93 SPA Repsol Honda Team Honda 0.345
3   - ESPARGARO Aleix 41 SPA Team Suzuki Ecstar Suzuki 0.538
4   - BARBERA Hector 8 SPA Avintia Racing Ducati 0.674
5   - ROSSI Valentino 46 ITA Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Yamaha 0.727
6   - VINALES Maverick 25 SPA Team Suzuki Ecstar Suzuki 0.893
7   - DOVIZIOSO Andrea 4 ITA Ducati Team Ducati 1.182
8   - REDDING Scott 45 GBR Octo Pramac Racing Ducati 1.305
9   - PEDROSA Dani 26 SPA Repsol Honda Team Honda 1.370
10 - LAVERTY Eugene 50 IRE Aspar MotoGP Team Ducati 1.370
11 - IANNONE Andrea 29 ITA Ducati Team Ducati 1.462
12 - HERNANDEZ Yonny 68 COL Aspar MotoGP Team Ducati 1.473
13 - CRUTCHLOW Cal 35 GBR LCR Honda Honda 1.557
14 - ESPARGARO Pol 44 SPA Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Yamaha 1.612
15 - BRADL Stefan 6 GER Aprilia Racing Team Gresini Aprilia 1.623
16 - SMITH Bradley 38 GBR Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Yamaha 1.732
17 - BAZ Loris 76 FRA Avintia Racing Ducati 1.765
18 - BAUTISTA Alvaro 19 SPA Aprilia Racing Team Gresini Aprilia 2.018
19 - PIRRO Michele 51 ITA Ducati Team Ducati 2.286
20 - MILLER Jack 43 AUS Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS Honda 2.349
21 - RABAT Tito 53 SPA Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS Honda 2.675