DIFFICULT SEASON OPENER BUT MARQUEZ SALVAGE IMPORTANT POINTS

It wasn’t the start that Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa would have liked for their 2015 MotoGP Championship campaign. Dani, starting from second on the grid and Marc starting from third, both had a problematic first corner, with Marc emerging as the biggest victim. As the MotoGP riders jostled for position, Dani was edged out down to seventh and Marc made a small mistake, running wide in turn one and rejoined the track in last place.

Both riders began to make up positions with Dani in sixth and Marc up to eleventh by lap three. The Repsol Honda duo pushed to chase race leaders Lorenzo, Dovizioso, Iannone and Rossi with Dani was on the tail of this group but unable to keep the pace. As the race progressed Dani began to suffer severe arm pump in his right arm and slowly dropped back. Meanwhile Marc passed Petrucci, Crutchlow, Smith and Hernandez and was up to sixth by lap eight.

On lap twelve Marc reached Dani and passed him into 5th, demoting Dani to 6th. Marc began to chase down the leading four riders but the gap of 3.8s was too great. Nevertheless, Marquez still managed to break a record with the fastest top speed recorded in the premier class of 350.5km/h, beating the previous record held by Iannone of 349.6km/h.

This is the first time since winning the German GP in 2013 that Marc has not lead the MotoGP Championship standings. Both riders will be looking to bounce back from this disappointing start and challenge for victory at the Red Bull Austin GP in two weeks time.

MEDICAL CHECK BEFORE QATAR RACE

Marc and Álex Márquez  visited CAR de Sant Cugat. They had a medical check up to be ready for the MotoGP kick-off,this weekend in Qatar. Both brothers have a check up and you can watch much more on this video: https://youtu.be/eBHvqd2ucHU

Alex and Marc are really excited “with the results and looking forward to starting this new season”. For Marc it’s no news, he will defend his crown for a second year in a row while for Alex it’s a new experience. He is a Moto2 rookie after his great Moto3 world title last november in Valencia.

MARQUEZ 2ND ON DAY TWO IN QATAR

Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez has completed a productive second day at the Qatar pre-season test.

With more rubber laid down after yesterday’s action, track conditions improved today and the final times were very close with less than a second separating 1st and 14th. Marc spent the day working on general setup on his RC213V machine.

The top time was traded amongst a few riders and despite breaking the circuit lap record with his time of 1’55.091 on lap 27 of 54 (beating Stoner’s time from 2008 of 1’55.153), Marc had to settle for the 2nd spot on the timing sheets behind Dovizioso. Teammate Dani finished in 6th place with his time of 1’55.582 (lap 22 of 40).