Petronas SRT satellite Yamaha rider Fabio Quartararo admitted that he and the remainder of the MotoGP field will be left hoping for a mistake from MotoGP World Champion, after the Spaniard’s stunning pace on the opening day of action in Aragon.

The Frenchman ended the combined free practice sessions in fourth place overall, 1.248 seconds behind the Spaniard’s blisteringly hot FP1 lap. Despite Marquez losing the front end of his Honda in FP2, his FP1 time was still over a second clear of the next fastest lap in the day.

The Frenchman admitted that Marquez has pace that nobody else can touch, with the rest of the field left hoping for a mistake from the Spaniard in order to challenge for the victory.

“Honestly, he has a pace that nobody can bridge this weekend,” said the 20-year-old.

“But that doesn’t mean he can’t make a mistake, like in Austin, so in the end we are thinking about doing our best job.

“This morning he went super-fast and this morning he worked on his pace, he had an unbelievable pace, so at the moment we don’t think about Marquez.

“He is not in our targets. I think we don’t need to look at Marc. Marc is in another category this weekend and we saw this morning that he was really fast and I think that we saw at Misano it was not the track that was really for him and he won, I think this one is the best track for the Honda and for him.”

When asked about his own progress over the weekend, Quartararo admitted he is struggling in the final sector, where the riders accelerate onto the back straight, as well as the downhill section of the track.

“Sector four is a sector where we struggled quite a lot” he said. “But there is also sector two where there is the braking on the downhill, and there we feel like the bike won’t stop.

“Sometimes it’s from the front, as you know when you are really pushing the front you are locking it and, on the time attack it is the front that was really low. The rear was moving a little, so I didn’t feel really great in this area.”