Fastest time for Alex Márquez: New tarmac at Motegi helped set the lap record

On Friday afternoon at the Mobility Resort Motegi, the MotoGP World Championship saw Gresini-Ducati star Alex Marquez set the fastest time. The 30-year-old narrowly edged out Spielberg winner Pedro Acosta and his brother Marc in the final stages of the qualifying session – and, like Acosta, also beat the previous Motegi MotoGP lap record set by Francesco Bagnaia.

Like many others, Alex Márquez was in the pits after the session and was able to laugh at Jack Miller’s slapstick taxi ride for Alex Rins on the monitor. The field is bunched up more tightly than usual on this stop-and-go track: 18 riders were within a second of each other at the end. “It went well today. I was able to ride the way I wanted to right from the start. The lap times came naturally, without any great pressure. That’s a good start,” said Marquez, sounding pleased.

As for Saturday and Sunday at Motegi, the younger of the Marquez brothers remains cautious: “We definitely need to improve further for Saturday – that’ll be essential. One and a half tenths can make a huge difference. The field is extremely tightly bunched. I also feel good with the current race set-up.” Speaking of his compatriots Pedro Acosta and his brother Marc, Alex said: “Marc was very quick on the medium rear tyre. Pedro rode more on the soft tyre. Friday usually doesn’t provide that many real insights yet.”

Alex Marquez holte sich in Motegi den Rundenrekord

Foto: Gold and Goose

“In qualifying, we’ll then see which riders have focused more on race pace. We’ve also done a lot of work with the medium rear tyre; tomorrow we’ll turn our attention to the soft tyre. We’ll see how things pan out then. But starting the weekend like this is the best foundation.”

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On the new track surface at Motegi, Márquez says: “The new asphalt helps me. I can brake the bike better than last year. It doesn’t have such a big effect at the rear, but at the front it feels much better than it did a year ago. I’m looking forward to tomorrow. But it’s not that easy when you’ve got a lot of grip on the front tyre. There were quite a few crashes today. The front tyre tends to slide out – that’s the main problem when a track has new tarmac.”

The second Gresini rider was unlucky. Fermin Aldeguer, who briefly led the qualifying session, was pushed back in the final stages. The youngster missed out on Q2 by 0.004 seconds after 45 minutes.