Marc Márquez is the reference at the MotoGP test in Austin

Today saw the final day of private training sessions for several teams of the MotoGP World Championship at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, where Marc Márquez was the reference, dominating all three days of testing, so the 93’s adaptation to this new track in the World Championship is very interesting.

On this occasion, only the MotoGP bikes Honda went out on track, as the two Yamaha riders, Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi, had already ended their participation in this pre-season test yesterday, while the two official Honda riders, Pedrosa and Márquez, and the LCR Honda rider, Bradl, continued today with the final runs and sensations in Austin.

But Márquez not only dominated, he also never stopped searching, achieving his best lap time on this third day in the final minutes, lowering his time to 2:03.281, thus cutting more than half a second from the mark he had set on the second day. The Catalan was very strong with his RC213V, leaving Pedrosa more than half a second behind.

Second place went once again to Dani Pedrosa, who throughout the three days has always finished in this position, setting a time of 2:03.898, improving his lap time from the second day by 0.078s. It was a day in which the 26 did not complete many laps of the USA track, with just 24 laps, far fewer than his teammate, who completed 60 laps. All of this was caused by neck pain that appeared after the first run on track, so he decided not to push the situation any further and to take it more calmly.

Behind them, Stefan Bradl achieved a time of 2’04.225, improving his second-day time by 0.415s and with 43 laps in his record, so good sensations. For his part, Young, with his CRT MotoGP, completed 42 laps and recorded a time of 2’12.186.

That concludes a test in which Honda gathered many references about this circuit, and now we will see next week in the tests at the Jerez Circuit with all the teams and riders in action.

Statements from Dani Pedrosa:

After the first run on track this morning I felt pain in my neck – I’m not sure what caused it, but it affected my riding – so I decided not to do many laps. Everything went well, it was three positive days and I’m happy to have come because we were able to do a lot of laps of the circuit, and that has helped us learn the track, which is very technical and complicated. The braking zones are very strong and there are some blind corners, so it’s important to have trained here to know the best point to enter these corners.

As for the bike setup, we couldn’t test much because it’s a circuit we don’t know and, with not many riders on track, the asphalt wasn’t at 100%, although it improved over the days. We only tried one type of tyre, the soft compound, but the overall sensations are positive. I want to thank Honda for the effort they made to come here; it has been very valuable and I am very grateful for it.

Statements from Marc Márquez:

Today was the last day and it went well. From the beginning I had the same sensations as yesterday; this morning we started working on the bike setup for the first time and improved quite a lot in some areas. After lunch we considered doing a race simulation, but in the end we decided to concentrate on the bike’s electronics.

Training in Austin has been important, since the second race of the season will be here. It’s a very physical circuit – especially the first sector – but now we know this track a little better and we have a good base for when we come here for the Grand Prix.

Photo | MotoGP Official website and Repsol Media Service