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Marc Marquez was disappointed as he missed out on a Q2 slot after Friday's second practice session. The Spaniard is going to Japan on the back of an impressive weekend in India, where he secured a podium finish in the sprint race.
With this being Honda's home race, there was some optimism in the air for the Japanese team, but as it turned out the bike is back to its normal competitive levels.
Marquez did, however, feel that he could have made it to the top 10 of the timesheets if his first push lap was not cancelled because of the yellow flag and he did not fall in the second lap.
After failing to secure a direct Q2 slot Marc Marquez told MotoGP.com:
“Some days I go into Q2 without the speed. Today I had the speed, but I don't go in! With the first tyre, I made a mistake on the last corner and then with the second tyre there was a yellow flag and the fast lap was cancelled."
"But there was a bit of a misunderstanding for me, because I didn't see that yellow flag and didn't know that my fast lap was cancelled. [So] I approached the last lap thinking I needed to improve on the [cancelled] '44.0. That was already a very good lap time and I lost the front in turn one.”
"We are half a second slower than the top guys"- Marc Marquez
Talking about where Honda finds itself, Marc Marquez felt that the bike was around half a second slower than Ducati, KTM and Aprilia:
“On race pace, we are half a second slower than the top guys. It’s a lot. But let’s see. Step by step we are trying to do our weekend. To do a step tomorrow will be difficult. I will not touch a lot of things on the bike, I'm just concentrating on my lines, on my riding style."
He added:
"What I changed from this morning [1m 46.0s] to this afternoon is just a little bit more risk, pushing a bit more, and I was closer to the top guys.”
Marquez will be accompanied in Q1 in qualifying by his teammate Joan Mir. Mir did not have the best run despite an impressive outing in India. The 2020 MotoGP champion set the 12th fastest time in the second practice, while Marquez had the 14th fastest time.
