Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa started action this morning at the Red Bull Grand Prix of the Americas, setting the second- and seventh-fastest lap times, respectively, in the first Free Practice. Each of the Repsol Honda men spent the entire session on the same tyre combination: medium-front/medium-rear for Marc, soft-front/medium-rear for Dani.

Following are the first impressions from Marc and Dani. An additional release will follow at the end of the day, as usual.

Marc Marquez

2nd 2'05.500

“Today I felt quite good on the bike. We did two long runs with the two bikes set up differently, one with a setup similar to what we used in Argentina and another very different in order to understand which works better for this track this weekend. Overall, the feeling wasn’t so bad; I think we did a good job on used tyres and we found a good pace, though we have a margin for improvement, especially on the electronic side. The circuit has changed a lot from last year, as it’s now very bumpy. This afternoon we’ll try another tyre and we’ll work more on the bike’s setup, also looking to cope with the bumps better.”

Dani Pedrosa

7th 2'06.109

“As a first session, I think it went ‘okay.’ The track this year is incredibly bumpy. There are a few points where the bumps are huge, in the braking points for turn one, five, six and ten, when we move to the left, and on the back straight it’s like a whoop section in motocross! We need to work on the electronics but of course it’s not easy. Today we tried a new exhaust but we need to work on it more and to gather more data. We worked the whole session with the same tyres, and the feeling wasn’t bad, but we’ll try to improve further.”

MotoGP 2017
Practice Round 3   Americas

FREE PRACTICE 1 Results

Dry
Humidity
84%
Track Temp
27°C
Air Temp
23°C
Pos. Rider Num Nation Team Constructor Time/Gap
Location Information

The Circuit Of The Americas is the first purpose-built Grand Prix facility in the U.S. near Austin, Texas, with a 5.513km track and a capacity for 120,000 fans. Construction of the impressive 1000-acre facility was completed late in 2012, with MotoGP lining up at the track for the first time… read more.

Length 5.513 kilometres / 3.426 miles
Width 15 metres
Left corners 11
Right corners 9
Longest straight 1.2 kilometres / 0.746 miles
Constructed 2012
Modified 2018 (track repairs to the surface to smooth down bumps)

9201 Circuit of the Americas Blvd Austin, TX 78617 - View in Google Maps

circuitoftheamericas.com

Records

Pole Position 2m 00.864s (164.2 km/h) Maverick Viñales (Aprilia, 2024)
Race Lap 2m 02.575s (161.9 km/h) Maverick Viñales (Aprilia, 2024)
Race Time 41m 09.503s (160.7 km/h) Maverick Viñales (Aprilia, 2024)
2024 Sprint Winner Maverick Viñales (Aprilia)
2024 Race Winner Maverick Viñales (Aprilia)