Marquez third fastest, Pedrosa 11th on the opening day of the Malaysian Grand Prix
After setting the tenth quickest time in today’s FP1 session at Sepang, spent as always on the same set of tyres, Marc Marquez managed to lower his time by over a second in the afternoon’s FP2 session, finishing second fastest (third in the combined classification) just 0.093” behind provisional pole setter Alex Rins.
Dani Pedrosa struggled to find a good feeling but improved a bit his lap time in the afternoon, ending the FP2 session in 10th place (11th in the combined classification) less than one second off the top.
Marc Marquez
“All in all it was a good day for us. This morning I felt good, but this afternoon we struggled a lot at the beginning of the FP2 session: I had some moments and had save it a few times. Finally, we changed the front tyre from hard to medium and in the last run we could improve our speed and our lap time. Anyway we need to work very hard on our race pace. We’ll try a different setup in order to see if we may manage better the front tyre. We need to make a step forward if we want to get closer to Dovizioso, who at the moment is the fastest out there.”
Dani Pedrosa
“Today we had not really a good feeling. No much grip on the rear and we also struggled a lot in turning. I could not make the pace I would like to have here. In the afternoon we improved the lap time but the grip was even worse. We need to improve the bike’s setup because so far we have not the feeling we had in the test. We must to figure out what to do for tomorrow and keep working hard. It will be important to go out tomorrow and try to improve.”
Combined Free Practice Classification
Pos. | Rider | Num | Nation | Team | Constructor | Time/Gap |
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Location Information
Specifically built for speed and exciting racing, the Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia is one of the world’s best. The 2,300 acre complex cost around £50m to construct and was built in just 14 months, holding its first Grand Prix in April 1999 and setting the standard for race circuits… read more.
Length | 5.543 kilometres / 3.444 miles |
Width | 25 metres |
Left corners | 5 |
Right corners | 10 |
Longest straight | 0.920 kilometres / 0.572 miles |
Constructed | 1998 |
Sepang International Circuit Klia Pahang Malaysia - View in Google Maps
Records
Pole Position | 1m 56.337s (171.5km/h) Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati, 2024) |
Race Lap | 1m 58.979s (167.7km/h) Alex Marquez (Ducati, 2023) |
2024 Race Winner | Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) |
2024 Sprint Winner | Jorge Martin (Ducati) |