Reigning MotoGP World Champion Marc Marquez believes the pace of the Open class bikes on soft tyrees at Qatar’s MotoGP round could make life tough for the Factory riders when it comes to qualifying in the desert tomorrow.

The Spanish Repsol Honda man, who is still healing a broken leg, managed to get his RCV213V into seventh place overall today but is till seven-tenths off the pace of Aleix Espargaro on the Forward NGM Yamaha.

“The day went pretty well. Besides not being as high up the timesheet as I would have liked, I'm happy because my leg felt much better than yesterday. We’ll see if things continue in this way tomorrow, as I had a little more strength today and less pain,” said Marquez.

“We have also improved our setup, although we still have room for improvement with the bike and also myself. Tomorrow we shall continue working in the same way with a focus on the race. Qualifying is going to be difficult, because the Open class riders have a softer tyre available, but the important thing is the race.”