Repsol Honda Team on pace in tight Catalan GP practice
Making the most of track time, Marc Marquez and Jorge Lorenzo are pleased with the work done as the opening day of Catalan GP practice came to a close.
Despite a brief spitting of rain in the afternoon, both Repsol Honda Team riders were able to gather good amounts of information and data at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Conditions remained steady throughout the day, the track peaking at 42°C and the air temperature hardly changing from 26°C.
Starting the day immediately on the pace, Marc Marquez continued to improve his feeling on the Repsol Honda Team RC213V throughout Free Practice 1 and ended the session fastest with a 1’40.692. Unable to improve this time in Free Practice 2, Marquez heads into Saturday as the ninth fastest rider overall.
Jorge Lorenzo used the track time to assess new ergonomics for his Honda RC213V. Improving by 0.8s, Lorenzo ended Friday practice with a 1’40.816 for 14th overall. Despite the position, Lorenzo is just 0.737s shy of Quartararo’s fastest time as only 0.5s separated the top five riders.
Takaaki Nakagami finished as the top Honda rider, third aboard the LCR Honda.
Saturday, June 15, begins with Free Practice 3 at 09:55 local time – a last chance for riders to set a top-ten time and advance directly to Q2. Qualifying for the premier class commences at 14:10.
Marc Marquez
“Not a bad day today. We had to change our strategy from the last GP a little bit because it’s important to understand the tyres. If you check the FP2 times, we look like we are far but we were able to do a lot of work and try many tyres and some setup changes. We’re not bad and the position isn’t our real one. I’m happy with all the information that we were able to get.”
Jorge Lorenzo
“The track was not in the best condition today and it was very slippery, the lap times were not as fast as they could have been I think. I did not use a new soft tyre like many other riders in FP2 as I think we will be able to profit more tomorrow. Today we were able to try some new parts and hopefully it will help us close the gap to the front more.”
Catalan Grand Prix Combined Free Practice Classification
| Pos. | Rider | Num | Nation | Team | Constructor | Time/Gap |
|---|
Location Information
In 1989, through the joint collaboration of the Catalan Autonomous Government, the Montmeló Town Council and the Royal Automobile Club of Catalunya (RACC), work began on giving one of Europe’s most beautiful cities a state of the art race track to match. The Circuit de Catalunya opened on the doorstep… read more.
| Length | 4.627 kilometres / 2.875 miles |
| Width | 12 metres |
| Left corners | 5 |
| Right corners | 8 |
| Longest straight | 1.047 kilometres / 0.651 miles |
| Constructed | 1991 |
| Modified | 2018 |
Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Montmeló, Catalunya, Spain - View in Google Maps
Records
| Pole Position | 1m38.639s (169.9km/h) Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati, 2023) |
| Race Lap | 1m39.939 (167.7km/h) Johann Zarco (Ducati, 2021) |
| Race Time | 40'21.749 (166.1km/h) Miguel Oliveira (KTM, 2021) |
| 2023 Sprint Winner | Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia) |
| 2023 Race Winner | Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia) |
