MotoGP: Marquez happy despite three crashes on final day

Reigning MotoGP world champion

The Repsol Honda rider came away from the final test of the 2017 preseason in tenth overall – but says that despite both results and test, he’s happy with the work that they’ve done.

“I’m happy with the pace we were able to keep today but of course it hasn’t been the best test of the pre-season for us. I crashed three times, the first at the very beginning because the bike had a wobble at turn four and I braked late. Then later in the night I lost the front twice, and especially the last crash during my race simulation was my fault.

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“But when you’re doing a long run you must try and push, otherwise you can’t understand where you really are. Anyway, better if this kind of thing happens now, during a test, and hopefully when we come here again for the race we’ll be able to manage things better. As I said, our rhythm is quite good; only Maverick is faster than everyone here, and if we were to race tomorrow I believe we should be able to fight for the podium.”

However, on the other side of the garage, teammate Dani Pedrosa came away from the test much more positive, showing his old form for the first time through testing to finish third.

“I think today was a positive day in general. We had a few things to sort out from yesterday, and step-by-step we improved our feeling, the lap times and our rhythm in general. The improvement was general and even if we still have work to do, we gained confidence and this was a positive end to the pre-season. This track is not one of my favourites, but the team did a great job and things kept improving. We’re in better shape than last year and we’ll try to add this confidence to the motivation for the GP and to do our best at the first race.”

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