2024 Thai MotoGP: Marc Marquez under lap record in tight Practice
Gresini rider ends Friday fastest ahead of title challengers
Marc Marquez posted a new lap record to top second practice at the 2024 MotoGP Thai Grand Prix on his Gresini-run GP23, with the title challengers trailing him.
A previous winner at the Buriram track in his Honda days, Marquez looked comfortable throughout the hour-long session on Friday afternoon.
Setting the early pace in Practice, Marquez returned to the top of the order in the final minutes with a new lap record of 1m29.165s to lead championship leader Jorge Martin by 0.110s.
Martin safely made it into Q2 but endured a scrappy practice on his Pramac-run GP24, as did main title rival Francesco Bagnaia.
After the first 10 minutes of running, Marquez sat top of the order with a 1m30.105s, which would stand as the benchmark for quite a while as the field focused on long running.
It wouldn’t be until the session ticked into its final 15 minutes that Marquez was dethroned, with KTM’s Brad Binder going on a run of two laps that culminated in a 1m29.949s.
That was quickly beaten by Tech3 GASGAS rookie Pedro Acosta with a 1m29.840s, before Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo on a fresh medium rear tyre shot to the top of the pile with a 1m29.822s.
With just under 10 minutes to go, Martin on fresh rubber would spread the field briefly with a 1m29.543s, which was narrowly beaten by Aprilia’s Maverick Vinales with a 1m29.506s.
A follow-up effort of 1m29.275s from Martin put him under the lap record and well clear of the rest as the session wound down.
But it wouldn’t be enough to keep him top, as Marc Marquez produced a 1m29.165s with just under two minutes to go.
Enea Bastianini recovered from an early fall at Turn 3 to finish third ahead of factory Ducati team-mate Bagnaia, who found himself going the wrong way with bike set-up on Friday afternoon.
Vinales was fifth for Aprilia ahead of Pramac’s Franco Morbidelli, while Acosta was the only KTM inside the top 10 in seventh from Gresini’s Alex Marquez, VR46’s Marco Bezzecchi and LCR Honda’s Johann Zarco.
Both factory KTMs of Binder and Jack Miller were knocked out of Q2, as was Quartararo, while Aleix Espargaro ended his session early due to pain from his heavy FP1 crash.
Trackhouse Aprilia stand-in Lorenzo Savadori crashed in the opening stages of the session at the final corner and was 21st on the timesheets.
