MotoGP World Champion Marc Marquez has said that the forecasted high temperatures for this weekend’s race in Aragon will make life tough and pose rear tyre issues for the Honda rider.

Despite the strength of the Ducati riders, Marquez was surprised to see him topping the timing sheets. However, the Spaniard is anticipating another hard weekend with the high temperatures and the lack of testing done around Aragon.

“It will be tough because with these hot conditions, tyre life and all these things you need to manage really well,” said the six-time World Champion.

“This is one of the tracks that’s more demanding for the rear tyres, long corners and the sliding. We need to understand and work because it looks the tyre drop is there and difficult to manage.

“It looks like Ducati and Yamaha have more information because they tested here, but we are trying to analyse all the performance from the different tyres and will try to choose the best one for Sunday,” he added.

The morning session saw Marquez sixth fastest and over three quarters of a second behind Dovizioso’s fastest time. That was flipped in the afternoon and the World Championship leader admitted he was surprised to see himself go fastest.

“The most important thing today is that from the morning to the afternoon we did a big step on the set-up, on the electronics, and I feel better with the bike,” he said.

“Still we need to improve, but yes it was something that we already expected; especially that both Ducatis would be fast in FP1 because they tested here a few weeks ago.

“But the good thing is that in the afternoon we were much closer with the race pace to them and also in one lap we were fast.”