“One of the toughest Fridays” for Marc Marquez but he refuses to divulge details

Marc Marquez says he battled “various problems” throughout Friday practice at the MotoGP Japanese Grand Prix despite finishing second-fastest.

The Gresini Ducati rider narrowly missed out on topping Friday’s times in the hour-long afternoon session, with Brad Binder beating him by just 0.033 seconds.

But Marquez’s one-lap speed couldn’t mask the problems he was having on the bike throughout second practice, with the eight-time world champion seen acting visibly frustrated in his Gresini box at one stage.

Commenting on his day, Marquez said: “Today was a strange day, first of all for the weather.

“And on the other hand we had a very strange practice in the afternoon with various different small problems.

“But we were not able to work in a normal way.

“We don’t understand nothing about the tyres, but fortunately on the time attack I felt good and I was able to be fast. But now I need to find that consistency.”

When pressed on what exactly his problems were, Marquez remained coy - though in his Spanish debrief he noted that one of his issues was braking.

“Many things,” he replied when asked what problems he had.

“I cannot go on the details. But we had small different problems and was a very important practice.

“So, for that reason, I knew it was also important to go in Q2.

“That was the main reason I was [spending] a lot of time in the box - to prepare well, to fix the problems and just do the time attack.”

Marquez’s crew chief Frankie Carchedi took to social media to state: “That was one of the toughest Fridays of the year.

“Nothing was working, but figured a few things in the last 10 mins.”

Both Gresini riders earned direct passage into Q2 for qualifying on Saturday, with Alex Marquez eighth at the end of second practice after making a late improvement to a 1m44.033s to vault ahead of the VR46 Ducati duo of Fabio Di Giannantonio and Marc Bezzecchi.