Marc Márquez dominated the first day of the MotoGP Aragon GP. After topping the first free practice session, the Spanish rider from Gresini continued his dominance in the afternoon session, even setting a new lap record at MotorLand Aragón with a lap time of 1m45.801s. He beat Aleix Espargaró (Aprilia) by 0.272s.
The eight-time world champion admitted that he approached the day differently than usual: ‘Yes, because I had the speed from the beginning. Then, when you have the speed, all the plans are working well, and then you can work more with used tyres, you can focus less on the time attack, and it’s easier to work. Today I had the confidence, and the team did a very good job, I started with a very good base from the beginning, and this helps a lot. Let’s see if tomorrow we can keep going, because the key of the weekend will be to understand the track – the track conditions are improving, and I predict that this will make everything closer again. Today, these were my conditions – it was a bit slippery, no traction, losing the front, and I was enjoying’.
On Friday, the Ducati Desmosedici GP23 seemed even slightly better than this year’s GP24, but Márquez believes that the GP24 will progress significantly: ‘I don’t know. Honestly speaking, I didn’t check the data and I will not check it today, because when you are the fastest you just ride by instinct. But it’s true that especially the 2024 makes the difference when they can put a lot of torque on the ground. And it is there. If you check, [Johann] Zarco was in with the Honda. Why? Because when you have low grip, the grip of the track puts the limit of the grip, it’s not the bike. And with low grip everything is different. But the GP24 did a big step from this morning to this afternoon, and I predict they will make an even bigger step for tomorrow’.
At this point, Márquez is still chasing his first win with Gresini’s Ducati. Could he be thinking about that victory this weekend in Aragón?: ‘Today, yes. Today we are first, we are the fastest. I don’t like to put pressure to myself. It’s only Friday; tomorrow we will have the next target that is the qualifying, trying to be on the front row, maximum second row. And then from that point the next target will be the Sprint race. But today we were super competitive, and the target tomorrow is to keep the same feeling’, he said.
When asked if he was surprised with his speed, Márquez replied: ‘Yes. I expected to be fast because it’s a race track that I like, but not with that gap. I know that is not the first time that I have that gap at this circuit, and then during the weekend they come closer and closer. So my target tomorrow will be trying to keep my level, don’t stress a lot, and they will be closer and closer. Let’s see what is the pace before the Sprint race’.