Marquez third on day 1 at Assen, with Pedrosa tenth
Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa set the third- and 10th-fastest lap times during the cloudy yet almost totally dry opening day of the Dutch TT.
With weather forecasts showing a high chance of rain for tomorrow, Marc and Dani tried several Michelin tyres and worked on their bike setup before going into “time attack” mode in FP2, securing top-10 spots that could put them straight into Q2 if rain actually does disrupt the proceedings.
Marc Marquez
“With the wind, conditions were quite tricky today, but ultimately I’m happy enough with how it went. This morning we worked a bit more for the race pace, while in the afternoon, when a few drops started to fall, we almost immediately went for a time attack. In the end we did quite a good session, but our rivals are still a bit ahead of us. Anyway, I think we’re working in the right direction with the bike setup, and we just have to continue in this way, looking to improve the bike stability and rear grip above all. We have some margin and we’ll do our best to be faster.”
Dani Pedrosa
“Today we tried different tyres and not much else. We actually had a setup for this track that we planned to test, but with the weather so changeable and the forecast not good for tomorrow, the main goal became to try and be fast and secure a placing in the top 10. We were able to achieve that, improving a bit lap by lap, though not as much as we would have liked. Anyway, if it actually does rain tomorrow, we just have to focus on getting a good feeling in the wet and get ready for qualifying, no matter what conditions we’ll have in the afternoon.”
Results Session
| Pos. | Rider | Num | Nation | Team | Constructor | Time/Gap |
|---|
Location Information
Assen is the only venue to have held a round of the Motorcycle World Championship every year since its creation in 1949. The circuit was purpose built for the Dutch TT in 1955, with previous events having been held on public roads. The track is narrow, with rapid changes in… read more.
| Length | 4.542 kilometres / 2.822 miles |
| Width | 14 metres |
| Left corners | 6 |
| Right corners | 12 |
| Longest straight | 0.487 kilometres / 0.303 miles |
| Constructed | 1955 |
| Modified | 2012 |
TT Circuit Assen, De Haar, Assen, The Netherlands - View in Google Maps
Records
| Pole Position | 1m 31.504s (178.6km/h) Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati, 2022) |
| Race Lap | 1m 32.500s (176.7km/h) Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia, 2022) |
| Race Time | 40m 25.205s (175.2km/h) Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati, 2022) |
| 2023 Race Winner | Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) |
| 2023 Sprint Winner | Marco Bezzecchi (Ducati) |
