Under the sunny skies that blessed the second day of the Aragon Grand Prix, Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa qualified in fifth and sixth places, respectively, and tomorrow will start side by side from the second row together with fellow Honda rider Cal Crutchlow.

The Repsol Honda men were fast in the dry today, as they had been yesterday in the wet. Marc was first in FP3 and third in FP4, and set the provisional fastest lap in his first attempt in qualifying. A crash at turn 12 during his second flying lap prevented him from fighting for the pole.

Dani also showed a good pace in FP3 (third fastest) and FP4 (second fastest) and just missed a perfect lap in qualifying, but he’s looking forward to tomorrow’s race.

Marc Marquez  93 - 5TH  1'47.963

“Today wasn’t easy because with conditions completely different from yesterday, we started from zero and maybe we didn’t immediately find the best direction with the setup of the bike. I was fast in FP3 but actually I wasn’t feeling perfectly comfortable. We made some changes for FP4 and I finally felt good on my last run with used tyres.

That’s positive and we’ll keep working in that direction in the warm-up to further improve the setup. In qualifying I probably pushed a bit too much, went wide, and crashed. So, second row is not the best, but our speed is there and I’m happy with that. We need to analyse everything and make a good tyre choice, which will be challenging as we don't have much data, but anyway, I think we have the pace to fight for the podium.”


Dani Pedrosa  26 - 6TH  1'48.107

“Today we tried to do the best work possible for the dry conditions, working as much as we could on our bike’s setup and on tyres. We didn't have much time to try everything we wanted, so we made the choices we think will work better for the race. I was able to lap fast in FP3 and FP4, while in qualifying unfortunately I wasn’t able to do two very good laps.

Anyway, we have to look to tomorrow now, to finalize the setup in the warm-up, and to correctly choose the tyres. Marc and Maverick look very strong, so we must keep focused and try to make no mistakes.”