Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa ended the first day of the GP of Argentina in first and third place, respectively, with fellow HRC rider Cal Crutchlow sandwiched between them in second.

As is the case every year, the Autódromo Termas de Río Hondo track proved to be dirty and very slippery in FP1, but Dani made the best of the difficult conditions and set the session’s fastest time after fitting a new set of tyres for his final exit. His 1’40.303” lap was fast enough to put him in third place in the first day’s combined times.

Though a few raindrops and a drop in temperature made track conditions even trickier in FP2, Marc was able to better his FP1 time of 1’40.781” by over a second, with his best lap of 1’39.395” putting him on top for the day.

FP3 will commence tomorrow at 10:55 a.m. local time.

Marc Marquez

1st 1'39.395 (FP2)

“It was a good day for us. When we started this morning, the track was quite slippery and we struggled a bit but it was the same for every rider, and the asphalt steadily became cleaner. In the afternoon, the second session was a bit strange as conditions were kind of mixed, but all in all we were able to do good work on the bike setup, getting a pretty clear idea about those conditions. It was important to start the Argentinian GP well, but now we’ll wait and see what conditions we have going forward, as there’s a good chance things will change a lot in the next two days. It’s possible that we’ll have a very different track on Sunday, which would require a different setup, so we must keep our focus and continue working hard to be ready for the race.”

Dani Pedrosa

3rd 1'40.303 (FP1)

“The track is always quite slippery here on the first day, which makes the first practice a bit tougher. The parts that had been resurfaced seem better in terms of the bumps, but the asphalt was too dirty to really understand what the grip was like. This morning we worked on the tyres, trying to make the best of the dry conditions, as the weather forecasts for the weekend aren’t good. We started the day well, but in the afternoon’s mixed conditions we weren’t able to complete all the work we had planned. We’ll see how the weather is tomorrow, and we’ll keep working for Sunday.”

MotoGP 2018
Practice Round 2   Argentina

Free Practice Classification

Cloudy
Humidity
76%
Track Temp
32°C
Air Temp
23°C
Pos. Rider Num Nation Team Constructor Time/Gap
Location Information

The Termas de Río Hondo Circuit is located 6km from the city which gives the venue its name, in the Province of Santiago del Estero. It was built in a 150 hectare area and officially inaugurated on May 11, 2008, during the visit of Argentina´s Touring Car Racing championship. In… read more.

Length 4.806 kilometres / 2.986 miles
Width 16 metres
Left corners 5
Right corners 9
Longest straight 1.076 kilometres / 0.669 miles
Constructed 2008
Modified 2013
Resurfacing Partly resurfaced before 2018 GP

Autódromo Provincial Termas de Río Hondo, Termas de Río Hondo, Santiago del Estero Province, Argentina - View in Google Maps

www.autodromotermas.com

Records

Pole Position 1m 37.683s (177.1km/h) Marc Marquez (Honda, 2014)
Race Lap 1m 39.019s (174.7 km/h) Valentino Rossi (Yamaha, 2015)
Race Time 34m13.628s (168.4 km/h) Marc Marquez (Honda, 2016) *shortened race
2022 Race Winner Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia)