Since winter testing, Marquez has adjusted his sniper rifle with the angelic face of Maverick Vinales as the single face in the center of his scope. The reigning World Champion needs to show the new Yamaha rider who is really the boss of the category, and that there is still a long way to go between four best winter times and the world crown at the end of the year.
“Tell my horse, because he has the strange and ridiculous habit of always moving forward when I want him to move back. » replied Roland de Roncesvaux to his Moorish attackers, and Vinales was not to be outdone on Friday by achieving the best time of the first session ahead of the second who was none other than… Marc Marquez, but 0.5 behind!
Vinales did not give up an inch of ground during the third session on Friday evening and retained first place, while Marquez was snatched second by Andrea Iannone who emerged from the devil. Never mind, Marc was going to respond during the qualifying session. Except that due to the lack of a dry track, there was never a qualifying session.
Vinales and Marquez will therefore be able to watch each other, each from one end of the first row. With Andrea Iannone in the middle of the sandwich, which could prove interesting in the first two corners.
Here we go, the 2017 season is launched. Ding! Marquez-Vinales first round.
To Marc Marquez, « Starting from the first row is a good result for me, even if I didn't get it in the best way. Tomorrow we will try to fight for the podium and the warm up will be very important. But we have already covered 300 laps on this track, including those done during the Test. So a podium would be a great reward. I don't know what the grip will be like during the race. I think for us MotoGP riders it will be fine because we have the Moto2 and Moto3 categories before. In any case, I hope that the weather will be stable and that the track will be dry. »
“The Saturday sessions are important because they normally allow us to prepare for the race. During the first day of testing we found a good base of settings. Yesterday we tested a lot of things, we would have liked to check them today. But the weather decided otherwise, we couldn't do anything in the end. It was too dangerous to ride in these conditions because it rained very hard all night and this morning. So we'll see this Sunday. »
