MotoGP Valencia, Free Practice 1: Marquez and Lorenzo, it's already a battle
It's immediately a close fight between the two Spaniards who will compete for the title, Rossi is fifth
Last and decisive round for the MotoGP class riders in Valencia. The title contenders on Sunday will be Marc Marquez and Jorge Lorenzo, with the latter having the arduous task of recovering 13 points from his Honda compatriot.
The first test session saw the riders take to the track with 20° in the air and 22° on the asphalt, in a climate that was more spring than autumn.
The fastest of these first 45 minutes was world championship leader Marc Marquez, who stopped the clock at a time of 1:31.557. Following him at just 18 thousandths is the reigning champion Jorge Lorenzo, riding the Yamaha.
Pedrosa also did well, third, 24 thousandths behind team-mate Marquez. Surprisingly, fourth is the British Bradley Smith. The Team Tech 3 rider lapped in 1:32.086, just over half a second from the top, putting Valentino Rossi behind him, who yesterday announced his “divorce” by Jeremy Burgess, a historic crew chief who has followed the Pesaro man since his debut in the Top Class.
Closing out the Top Ten are Alvaro Bautista with the Honda of Team Gresini, Cal Crutchlow with the second Yamaha of Team Tech 3, Stefan Bradl with the Honda of Team LCR and the two Ducatis of Nicky Hayden and Andrea Dovizioso. The other three Ducatis, those of Andrea Iannone, tester Michele Pirro and Yonny Hernandez are in twelfth, fourteenth and fifteenth position respectively.
The Italians with the CRTs are Claudio Corti (FTR Kawasaki of Team Forward) sixteenth, Danilo Petrucci (Ioda Suter BMW) eighteenth and Luca Scassa, twenty-second (riding the ART of the injured Karel Abraham).
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MotoGp Free Practice 1 Sepang - Malaysia - Times
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Sepang - Malaysia - Free Practice 1 results
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Jorge and Marquez also started as usual, Rossi seemed to start better because after the first outing he was first, leading the second by about 2 tenths, but from then on he no longer improved, while the others, despite the tires used, got away from the 7 tenths to a second.
The most impressive was Pedrosa who, after having made a somewhat dull first outing, came back and managed about 5 tenths in a record lap and then almost another tenth.
While Marquez and Lorenzo put in more outings and more laps, with new tires it is likely that they will already drop another 5 tenths without considering that they will probably improve the bikes even further.
Rossi, however, after a good start, no longer made any positive changes to the bike.
Also seeing the lap times, and the laps of the 3 Spaniards, and the fact that on many occasions they were not hindered, I believe that the electronic setting of the bike changes from one lap to the next, because with the tires at temperature and already warmed up, and without obstacles their lap time really changes a lot from one lap to the next and from the driving it doesn't seem like they are doing a relaxation lap. They try multiple settings in a single outing on consecutive laps and with what they manage to push harder they make a better time. It didn't seem like they were doing 3 or 4 fast laps one after the other with the same bike setting, something varied from one lap to the next, there was too much difference in some sectors.