VOL. 53 ISSUE 4 FEBRUARY 2, 2016 P21
big," he said. "On the other side,
my position is not so bad and we
worked a lot on the bike. It's just
the first day and the total count
will be at the end of the third, but
we have a lot of things to do, so
tomorrow we'll try to get a better
understanding."
Third place on day one went
to Repsol Honda's Dani Pedro-
sa, the diminutive Spaniard set-
ting a 2:01.780 to be four places
up from teammate Marc Mar-
quez in seventh. Both Repsol
riders are working hard to ease
the power delivery of the aggres-
sive Honda engine, a challenge
that will become harder with the
reduced freedom afforded by
the team with the control Mag-
neti Marelli electronics.
"Today we had to work very
hard on several things but the
positive part is that Honda
knows this and are working on
things in Japan," Pedrosa said.
"Michelin has made some posi-
tive changes, although we still
need to work more to improve
the feeling. We saw Jorge [Lo-
renzo] go very fast on day one,
so we are going to continue
improving gradually."
Marquez was a little more
circumspect in his approach to
day one, although he did put in
a strong day of 50 laps. He did
finish 1.594s off Lorenzo, which
will no doubt be a concern.
"We still have a lot of work to
do, as we have new electronics,
a new engine and a few different
engine specs to what we used
in Valencia and Jerez back in
November," Marquez said. "In
terms of setup, we made very
few adjustments, because we
were focused on the electron-
ics and adapting it to my riding
style. This is going to be a long
preseason in which we will have
to work hard on many different
things."
A surprise fourth on day one
was Danilo Petrucci on the
Octo Pramac Racing Ducati
GP15, 1.127sec off Lorenzo
and 0.101sec ahead of factory
Ducati rider Andrea Iannone.
Hector Barbera was sixth on the
Avintia Ducati GP 14.2, ahead of
Marquez, Scott Redding, Aleix
Espargaro and Cal Crutchlow
rounding out the top 10. CN
Rossi admits the gap to Lorenzo
is far too large but is remaining
optimistic.
Pedrosa has a job ahead
of him to tame the vi-
cious RCV engine.
