Madrid, Nov 9 (IANS) Moto GP world title leader Marc Marquez showed why he is favourite to seal the World Championship in the final race of the season when he was the fastest rider in the first training session ahead of the Valencian GP.
Marquez, who leads the title race with a 13 point lead over Jorge Lorenzo, was the fastest rider in the two practice sessions ahead of his Repsol Honda team-mate Dani Pedrosa, who was just 66 thousands of a second behind in the second session of the day, reported Xinhua.
The teenager, who is in his first season of MotoGP was just 18 thousands of a second ahead of Lorenzo in the first run of the day, but his advantage over the number two in the world title race had risen to 0.158.
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“Today we were able to work with the soft and hard compound tyres, but the track conditions weren’t ideal and the bike was sliding a lot,” explained Marquez at the end of the day, stressing that there was still a long way to go before he could even think about celebrating an incredible title in his debut season.
“We will have to be very focused, because the level of the other riders is high at the moment and everyone is riding fast. For tomorrow (Saturday) we shall concentrate on improving certain aspects of the bike and continue with the working method that we have been using,” he said.
Marquez has already had two chances to seal the title, but was disqualified in Australia after an error from his team saw him fail to pit at the right time, while Lorenzo’s win in Japan ensured the title would go right down to the wire.
However, Marquez was confident that the most important three days of his career had got off to a positive start.
“It was good to start the most important week of the season and with a good feeling. We still need to improve our setup but we were fastest today – which is the key thing ahead of Sunday’s race. Tomorrow we will continue in the same way but try to improve and take another step forward because I am sure that the rest of the riders will do,” he said.
Saturday will see the riders participate in the last qualifying session of the year, to decide the grid for the season finale and title deciding race.
