Marquez and Pedrosa secure provisional Q2 positions in mixed Austrian weather

“It was a good day for us. This afternoon, we actually had some doubts about going out in the rain, because it should be dry tomorrow afternoon and Sunday. Anyway, we decided to try, and we just did a few laps to check the electronics and a little bit the setup. I immediately felt very good and confident, but the most important thing is that I also had a good feeling this morning in the dry. We knew there was the possibility of rain later but we decided to go on with the same tyre, the medium spec, for the entire session, working for the race as we normally do. Tomorrow we’ll try the other tyre specs. Sure, the Ducatis are very fast here, especially Dovizioso, but we’re not far off.”

“The track was completely dry in the morning, so we tried to be as fast as possible because of the high chance of rain in FP2. We also hoped to take full advantage of the session, to understand as much as possible the track and the tyres. This afternoon I did just a couple of laps, just to check the tyres and the grip in wet conditions, and it was better than I expected. Clearly, it would be a problem if the rain gets really hard. The weather here changes very quickly, so it was important to try and understand the feeling we were able to get, but anyway the conditions should be better tomorrow.”