SPIELBERG, Austria – It was a productive first day of practice for Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez at the Red Bull Ring on Friday.
Marquez set the pace on day one in Austria, topping the overall timesheets with a best time of 1:23.916 during the second practice session.
“Today, like every Friday, we worked a lot towards Sunday, focusing on race distance and understanding how the tires and the setup will behave,” said Marquez. “Like in Brno and in the Sachsenring we were also working with two different frames – both were good. At a first look we are far ahead, but (Andrea) Dovizioso also has strong pace and (Maverick) Viñales and (Fabio) Quartararo are also quite close to us. We need to understand how the grip will change tomorrow and see what happens.”
Vinales was second fastest for Monster Energy Yamaha, with the LCR Honda of Takaaki Nakagami third fastest at the end of the day. Quartararo was fourth fastest for Petronas Yamaha SRT, with Jack Miller fifth fastest for Pramac Racing.