The opening day at the Australian Grand Prix showed up with typical changing weather conditions. Thereby, Red Bull KTM Tech3’s Marco Bezzecchi discovered a decent feeling on a wet track in FP1 already, but showed an even stronger performance in the sunny second session to finish just 0.471 seconds off the top in a fantastic fifth place.
On the other side of the Red Bull KTM Tech3 garage, Philipp Öttl took his time to find some decent sensations at the Phillip Island circuit in both Free Practice one and two. He concluded Friday 1.765 seconds behind his teammate in P26.
Marco Bezzecchi
Position: 5th
Time: 1:33.481
Laps: 30
"It was a good first day. Finally, we were able to initiate the weekend close to the front and not too far back. In the wet I was not bad, but in the dry was even better. This track with the Moto2 bike is just unbelievable, I had so much fun! Also the bike is working quite well, although we still need to find some solutions. But as it was just the first day, we know we need to continue working, stay focused, for sure also in my riding I can still improve, but seeing it in total for the moment, it’s quite ok."
Philipp Öttl
Position: 26th
Time: 1:35.246
Laps: 31
"Today was a weird day, also regarding the weather conditions. I think I could carry over some things I learned in Motegi also to here, but this track is a lot different compared to the last one. Either way, we will try our best tomorrow as well, planning to understand the conditions a little bit better in the rain. Overall, it was not a very bad day, but also not a great one."
