MOTOGP: COTA layout helping Honda - Marquez

Circuit of The Americas' first-gear corners negated Honda's MotoGP acceleration deficit more than Marc Marquez expected during Friday's practice sessions.

The championship leader has discussed acceleration as being Honda's weakest point, as it continues to adapt to the new control electronics. He had expected the Austin circuit to highlight that more than last weekend's Termas de Rio Hondo in Argentina, but wound up topping the afternoon session by seven tenths of a second.

Marquez has never been beaten in a MotoGP race in the US, and he also topped the morning session, as Honda experimented with larger winglets during practice.

"Acceleration was something of an unknown," Marquez said. "But it seems initially that it is not as much of a factor here as at other circuits, because most of the corner exits here are in first gear, and we don't lose so much.

"This morning we briefly tested some new winglets that effectively reduce the wheelying a little bit, but we need to test them further to better understand the bike's behavior with them."

The only blot on Marquez's copybook was a crash at the final corner in the afternoon, when he looked set to become the first rider of the weekend to lap below the 2m04s barrier. After rejoining the session, he narrowly missed that, settling for 2m04.034s.

"I saw that I was going very well on a lap and, on the last corner, I left my braking until a little later than before," he said of the crash. "I found out where the limit is."

NEW DIRECTION DOESN'T HELP PEDROSA

On the other side of the Honda garage, Dani Pedrosa finished Friday with the eighth fastest time, 1.160 seconds down on his teammate. It was marginally better than the opening session, when he was 10th and 1.497s off the pace, but Pedrosa is still "looking for the best setting for this track."

"After the last race, we decided to try something new this morning, but it didn't provide the feeling I was hoping for, so we changed it again in the afternoon," he said. "We improved our pace but it's still not what I am looking for."

Originally on Autosport.com