Marquez crashes twice as MotoGP starts final pre-season test

Repsol Honda teammates Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa took to the track with its version of an aero-fairing innovation for the first day of the final preseason test at Losail, but on his first run with it Marquez suffered the first of two falls and wound up 12th fastest.

"We can't say today was one of the best for us," Marquez admitted, "but it's only day one and we worked hard on trying many, many different things, including a new fairing that we want to test further. Some of them worked well, while others must be adjusted.

"I'm not very worried about the fast lap because our rhythm wasn't bad, so I'm satisfied with it. I had two small crashes; the first one was my fault as I braked a bit too late, while the second was a classic at this track as it came almost at the end of the session when the temperature had dropped and conditions weren't good anymore.

"Anyway, tomorrow is another day, and we'll work more on the bike's setup for this track and try to improve."

Honda was the fourth team to try an aero-fairing option as a replacement for the now-banged winglets.

Marquez, who completed 39 laps, wound up 1.080 seconds slower than Ducati's Andrea Dovizioso, who set the fastest lap at 1m54,818s, a mark that was 0.008s short of Jorge Lorenzo's time from last season's pre-season test but better than the race record 1m54.927s, also Lorenzo's. Maverick Vinales was second fastest (1m55.179s), followed by Honda's Cal Crutchlow (1m55,420s). Pedrosa finished eighth quickest at 1m55.692s.

Several riders crashed at Turn 2 late in the session, including Marquez, Pol Espargaro and Andrea Iannone.