Malaysian Grand Prix Practice - Rider Quotes
- Oct 23, 2015
- 5 min read
Day one of the 2015 Malaysian Grand Prix has come to a close and it was Jorge Lorenzo who topped the combined time sheets after setting the fastest time of the day in FP2. The Movistar Yamaha rider's time of 2:00.246 was only fractionally quicker than the time set by Dani Pedrosa, and long-run pace suggests that this closeness is set to continue throughout the weekend.
Marc Marquez ended the day third quickest, two tenths adrift of his team-mate whilst championship leader Valentino Rossi was down in eight. The Italian didn't get a low-fuel run in at the end of FP2 because of chatter issues with his number one bike on the medium front/medium rear tyres. He spent much of the session evaluating the hard compound front and rear, on which he set almost identical times to that of Lorenzo who was on used mediums. Both Hondas are looking very strong, in particular Pedrosa and this will be of some concern to Yamaha.
All of the attention after practice was on Marquez as he spoke to the media for the first time since that outburst from Rossi yesterday, in which the Italian slammed the young Spaniard for allegedly helping Lorenzo steal a march in the title race.
So lets take a look at what some of the riders had to say about today, starting with Marquez's reaction to Rossi's comments:
Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team:
“After some hours, I'm still surprised like I think everybody. Of course I respect Valentino and I will respect always, but I understand also his situation. That he is fighting for the title, he is really close to getting his tenth title, but he knows Jorge is really strong. So for that reason I prefer to be out of this battle.”
“It's true that we've all tested here, but now it's completely different. We are working to adapt the set-up of the bike to this circuit, although we went out with the base we used in the test and it was no too bad. It seems that the grip is still not the best, as happened last year, but we are working hard and I think that we will gradually improve. The important thing is that we are close to Jorge and Dani, who are the ones with the best pace. Let's see if tomorrow we can take that step forward and get the one tenth that I need to be there with them.”
Dani Pedrosa, Repsol Honda Team:
“Today we had the first practice sessions in Sepang and we focused our work on tyre testing and setting up the bike. We mainly used the day to see what shape the track was in and understand if the testing we did here in the Winter would be a help to us or not, and now we need to continue analysing with the team to see which is the most suitable race tyre for Sunday.”
Jorge Lorenzo, Movistar Yamaha MotoGP:
“We are working very well on the setting of the bike. We have a good pace both with the old and the new tyre, we just need to improve some details, but overall it's good. This afternoon it was very hot. It will depend on tomorrow's weather, but I think the bike can be further improved so I can better my lap time.”
Valentino Rossi, Movistar Yamaha MotoGP:
“This morning we had a good pace and in the afternoon we worked well until the last time we exited the box. We used a hard tyre to get and understanding of our capabilities, but unfortunately we didn't finish out work, because when we put on the softer tyre I had some problems with chatter and was not able to understand my potential. We will have to wait for tomorrow morning to also see what our level is with the medium tyres. It's too early to say if this will affect qualifying. The most important thing tomorrow will be to understand if it was the bike or the tyres that created too much vibration, but we still have another set of tyres, so we can manage.”
Bradley Smith, Monster Yamaha Tech 3:
“It's good to be back at Sepang which is a track that I enjoy riding at, but I must admit that today was quite a struggle and to be completely honest, we have some work to do. As soon as I started the morning, my confidence and feeling wasn't quite the same as usual with the bike and it's difficult to understand why after the positive tests that we had here in February. At the moment, we are unfortunately stuck inside the 2:02 bracket, which of course, is not where we want or need to be. However, a positive is that we are not just struggling with one specific factor but we need to improve the bike as a whole which means it is easier to find some solutions. Anyway, towards the end of the second free practice session, we were able to improve slightly, yet there is plenty of work to do tomorrow still. Overall, we tried a lot of different settings today in order to identify which direction to head towards and now we will have an in-depth look at the data and then see what we can do. It was a tricky start today, but for sure, tomorrow we will be stronger.”
Cal Crutchlow, LCR Honda:
“Today we did not have the best start to the weekend as we had a small crash in FP1 and were disappointed to lose some time. I've been using the hard rear tyre so far, and also started the second session with it, but we had some problems because of the pre-heating of the tyre. But in the end we managed to gain some in the lap time and we used the soft tyre at the end to seal the real potential of the day. We still have a bit of catching up to do, but I'm looking forward to working with the guys overnight and hopefully we can come back tomorrow and improve again.”
Scott Redding, EG 0,0 Marc VDS Honda:
“I'm pretty happy with today. This morning was good because we had a good base from the test here, but we still need to try some changes with the electronics. This afternoon was a little bit more difficult for me because the hotter temperature gave a greasy feeling with the front. It was not bad though and I feel quite comfortable with the bike so we just need to work a little bit more with the electronics for the tyre life. We'll work on these things for tomorrow and try and improve the lap time because it was a little bit more difficult with the hotter track temperature in the afternoon but, then again, it's the same for everybody.”
Andrea Iannone, Ducati Team:
“All things considered it was a positive day, pity only about my crash at the start of the second session. The front closed up when I entered Turn seven and I crashed; I'm sorry for the guys, who will now have to rebuild the bike. For the moment my pace on the track is good and this makes us hopeful for tomorrow. At the front I always used the medium compound tyre, which will probably be the one we'll use in the race but now it will be important to know if the others have used the same tyre or the hard one.”
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