Friday in Barcelona saw Marc Marquez and Joan Mir work on their preparations for the weekend’s pair of races, the duo focusing on themselves as opposed to the rest of the field’s activities.

A tricky first day at home for both Repsol Honda Team riders as they continued to work on assessing the aerodynamics upgrade introduced last race. For Marc Marquez, this meant riding with the older package and then the new version in back-to-back runs to compare. The eight-time World Champion suffered a fall without consequence at Turn Five during the morning session. He would go on to finish the day in 19th with a best time of 1’40.249.

Joan Mir, who turned 26 today, finished the afternoon session in 22nd place just behind his teammate. His Friday was focused on finding a setup to best improve his feeling, especially when pushing for a single flying lap. Cooler predicted temperatures for Saturday are offering the double World Champion some hope of improvements.

Heavy downpours had been forecast ahead of the weekend, but it looks set to stay dry in the immediate future. Action resumes at 10:10 Local Time before the Sprint race begins at 15:00 Local Time in the afternoon.

Marc Marquez

19th 1'40.249

“Today was about focusing on ourselves, I didn’t feel bad on the bike. In the morning I made the same mistake as in Austria when I was comparing the new parts, especially with aerodynamics the bike changes a lot. In the afternoon we worked on our base and our pace, I feel good but we are far from the top. Tomorrow the objective is to achieve our best and keep working.”

Joan Mir

22nd 1'41.013

“We were expecting it to be difficult this weekend because Montmelo is a circuit that’s always very critical for grip, the corners are very long and you need to manage the spin with the throttle. This year, this is the area we have been working on the most so we have to keep working on that here as well. I spent the day working on the setup of the bike. The goal for tomorrow is to improve the feeling so we can push more.”

MotoGP 2023
Practice Round 11   Catalunya

Friday Practice - Catalan Grand Prix

Dry
Humidity
63%
Track Temp
47°C
Air Temp
28°C
Pos. Rider Num Nation Team Constructor Time/Gap
1 Espargaro Aleix 41 SPA Aprilia Racing Aprilia 1'38.686
2 Vinales Maverick 12 SPA Aprilia Racing Aprilia 0.362
3 Bagnaia Francesco 1 ITA Ducati Lenovo Team Ducati 0.375
4 Zarco Johann 5 FRA Pramac Racing Ducati 0.571
5 Binder Brad 33 RSA Red Bull KTM Factory Racing KTM 0.660
6 Marquez Alex 73 SPA Team Gresini Racing MotoGP Ducati 0.863
7 Bezzecchi Marco 72 ITA Mooney VR46 Racing Team Ducati 0.864
8 Di Giannantonio Fabio 49 ITA Team Gresini Racing MotoGP Ducati 0.935
9 Bastianini Enea 23 ITA Ducati Lenovo Team Ducati 0.942
10 Martin Jorge 89 SPA Pramac Racing Ducati 1.007
11 Espargaro Pol 44 SPA Tech3 GASGAS Factory Racing KTM 1.035
12 Miller Jack 43 AUS Red Bull KTM Factory Racing KTM 1.066
13 Fernandez Raul 25 SPA RNF MotoGP Team Aprilia 1.071
14 Oliveira Miguel 88 POR RNF MotoGP Team Aprilia 1.093
15 Marini Luca 10 ITA Mooney VR46 Racing Team Ducati 1.121
16 Fernandez Augusto 37 SPA Tech3 GASGAS Factory Racing KTM 1.205
17 Quartararo Fabio 20 FRA Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Yamaha 1.420
18 Morbidelli Franco 21 ITA Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Yamaha 1.469
19 Marquez Marc 93 SPA Repsol Honda Team Honda 1.563
20 Nakagami Takaaki 30 JPN LCR Honda Honda 2.200
21 Lecuona Iker 27 SPA LCR Honda Honda 2.209
22 Mir Joan 36 SPA Repsol Honda Team Honda 2.327
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

www.circuitcat.com

Records

Pole Position 1m38.190s (170.7km/h) Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia, 2024)
Race Lap 1m39.664 (168.2km/h) Pedro Acosta (KTM, 2024)
Race Time 40'11.726 (166.8km/h) Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati,2024)
2024 Sprint Winner Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia)
2024 Race Winner Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati)