Marc Marquez names Balaton Park's most "difficult" and "easy" problems to solve

Marc Marquez may have finished second to Pedro Acosta on the Friday practice timesheets for the Hungarian MotoGP, but the Ducati Lenovo rider was again the man to beat on race pace.

He didn’t know it at the time, but Marquez’s 1m 37.753s, set on 17-lap old medium tyres, was fast enough to claim tenth place and direct access to Qualifying 2 - without needing to fit a fresh tyre.

In the end, Marquez finished a close 0.006s behind Pedro Acosta on new tyres.

Before that, the factory KTM rider had been Marquez’s nearest opponent on used rubber, clocking a 1m 38.012s on 15-lap old tyres. 

However, unlike Marquez, Acosta was using the soft rear.

Marc Marquez spots what 'other bikes' can do at Balaton Park

The question now is whether Marquez can go even quicker on a used soft tyre in Saturday’s final practice, or if Acosta will close the gap when he switches the other way, to an old medium.

“The pace is good and, as always, the feeling with used tyres is better than with fresh ones,” Marquez confirmed.

“We’ll try to make further progress tomorrow because this is a very, very different track, where other bikes are able to corner very tightly – and this is very important.

“In any case, I’m happy with how today went and we now aim at a spot on the first two rows, which will be key given how hard it is to overtake at this track.”

Marc Marquez names 'easy' aspect of Balaton Park

Marquez, who will be seeking to extend a 12-race win streak in Saturday’s Sprint, was one of the few with prior Balaton Park mileage after testing on a Panigale V4S during the summer break.

The eight-time world champion confirmed that consistency is tricky, with lap times fluctuating during each run, as well as cancellations for exceeding track limits.

“It’s quite a difficult race track, especially to find a way to be constant, to not exaggerate,” he told TNT Sport. “Step by step we got into the rhythm.

“It is one of the more difficult circuits to understand the way to be fast. But it is one of the easiest circuits to arrive at the limit. I expect tomorrow it will be super tight.

“The focus will be to try the soft rear tyre, to understand for a race distance. We need to try something on the set-up also because I believe we can improve in some points.”

Saturday’s qualifying is expected to be one of the most hotly contested of the season.

“It’s a super small circuit where it is difficult to make a difference,” he said. “Compared to the others, the lap times are super tight.”

Ducati team-mate Francesco Bagnaia was just 14th fastest.