Constructive first day in Brno despite temperamental weather

Fresh from their fantastic 1-2 finish in the German GP on Sunday, Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa were back on track in Brno today on day one of the three-day test.

Although the weather was bright and sunny first thing, a heavy rain shower at 11.30am drenched the track and left the Honda riders no option but to try some wet settings on their RC213V machines, Marc suffering a small crash in turn five after losing the front. The track slowly dried and by mid-afternoon it was dry enough to resume the testing program, but with very low grip. Marc and Dani remained on their current 2014 machines for the duration of the day working on general bike settings with both riders recording 49 laps each.

Tomorrow the plan will be to continue their schedule and also test the 2015 machine for the first time.

TEAM QUOTES

Marc Marquez

49 laps

“Today went fairly well, in the morning it rained and we were able to test out a few things on a wet track and I had a small crash. By the afternoon it had already dried out, although the grip levels weren’t too good. The important thing is that right at the end we had higher temperatures and a little more rubber on the asphalt, so we could try some initial changes to the setup. Let’s hope that conditions are better tomorrow”

Dani Pedrosa

49 laps

“We had a mixed session on this first day. It rained a lot at midday, so we were able to ride in wet conditions. After lunch the asphalt had dried out, but the track was still really dirty and didn’t offer us much grip. So unfortunately it wasn’t really a day in which we could test too many things. Let’s hope that tomorrow we can make better use of our track time to continue working”