Marquez fastest as lap times fall in Indianapolis
Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa have finished the first day in 1st and 5th respectively, as lap times continued to drop at the revised Indianapolis track. With a few drops of rain threatening the session, the bad weather never arrived and the riders made the most of this dry track time to familiarise themselves with the new surface and reworked corners.
Marc emerged fastest, bettering his morning time by two seconds with 1’32.882 on lap 16 of 19. Dani improved by three seconds from FP1 with his time of 1’33.493 (lap 17 of 18) placing him fifth on day one.
Marc Marquez
"Overall today went pretty well and after the holidays it is always important to pick back up the pace and regain confidence on the bike. We could also test out the new track surface today; now there are almost no bumps and it seems that the grip has also improved from last year. In terms of the layout, perhaps the previous one suited us a bit better but this one is more natural and more fun. We were also able to try out the hard and soft rear tyres, gathering data that we will review to make further improvements. We're happy with how today went and how we've progressed."
Dani Pedrosa
"We were able to progress a lot in the afternoon and tried out all the tyres, but we still need to work to see what the pace will be like and find the limits of the track. Today the track condition improved the more laps we all put in, because the asphalt cleaned up and gave us much more grip. Tomorrow we will work on finding the limits and getting a good tyre combination for Sunday’s race. I don’t like this new layout as much; it seems less fun compared to the previous one, because we have three fewer places in which to overtake."
Location Information
The first motorsport race which took place at Indy was a motorcycle one on August 14th 1909, on the 2.5 mile oval circuit, and despite its 100-year history it was not until 2008 that MotoGP arrived at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. To celebrate the event an intense modification of the… read more.
Length | 4.170 kilometres / 2.591 miles |
Width | 16 metres |
Left corners | 10 |
Right corners | 6 |
Longest straight | 0.872 kilometres / 0.542 miles |
Constructed | 1909 |
Modified | 2014 |
Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Indianapolis, IN, United States - View in Google Maps
Records
Pole Position | 1m31.619s (163.8km/h) Marc Marquez (Honda, 2014) |
Race Lap | 1m32.625s (162km/) Marc Marquez (Honda, 2015) |
Race Time | 41m55.371s (161.1 km/h) Marc Marquez (Honda, 2015) |
2015 Race Winner | Marc Marquez (Honda) |