Pedrosa, who retired as Marquez’s Repsol Honda team-mate at the end of 2018, was again on flying form from the start of his second wild-card ap꧅pearance of the s๊eason for KTM.

Meanwhile, Marquez began the day in 21st place and knew he needed a tow to break 🅘;into this afternoon’s top ten.

“In FP2 at Montmelo [last week] I didn't look for anybody [to follow] because the chance to be in Qualifying 2 on Friday෴ was super low. So I said, ‘OK, I will not try’,” Marquez explained.

“But today I saw that there was a chance, but it's true that the only way to do it is behind somebody, to try to impr𝕴ove the acceleration. And yeah, I chose the best one, that is Dani. I mean he is riding a MotoGP bike in the best way posꦡsible.

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“It was not my target [to follow him] on the first tyre but I did a mistake, I went wide on turn one and then he was coming. And when I followed him I said ‘OK, he's the guy to choose for the s꧋econd [new] tyre’. He was riding in a very good way.”

Pedrosa finished the♛ session in third and Ma🐬rquez sixth.

Marc Marquez: 'Japan is reacting'

Although a Honda rider throughout his grand prix career, winning 54 races, HRC seemed lukewarm at the prospect of offering Pedrosa a testing contract and he was snapped up by KTM. Was it a mistake🦂 by HRC?

“Dani of course is the best rider possible to ride the bike and to give the comments. But for m🐬e, the most important th💛ing for a test rider is the engineers,” Marquez said.

“As you see, Aprilia and Ducati have a ‘normal’ test rider, not ‘Dani Pedrosa’, and they are imp𝓡roving a 𒅌lot. So in the end the most important thing is the engineers and the development side.

“And as we see here, Bradl 🙈is testing new things and there are many new faces in the garage, new engineers. So yeah, Japan is 🧸reacting and this is good.”

Marquez, who has dominated the headlines this weekend after failing to deny sensational rumours he could ditch Honda to 𓄧ride a Gresini Ducati alongside broth♈er Alex next season, started practice with two different RCV set-ups.

“It’s strange what’s going on because in Austria I chose my set-up, in Montmelo Bradl’s set-up, here again I chose my set-up. The other Hondas in the morning chose Bradl’s set-up but then in the afternoon went towards my setup and then it𒅌 looks like they improved a bit," he explained.

“Nakagami 🐼I think is going more on Bradl’s set-up and Mir a little more my set-up… it's not a small set-up [difference], it’s a big one.

“But then the time attack for example I did with anoth💯er setup - not Brad’s and not mine. And I was fast.

"But alway💎💦s the same [rear grip] problems are there. So this means that the problems are not coming from the set-up, they are coming from another part.”

Marquez will try a 2024 prototype, develop😼ed by Bradl in testing, on Monday at Misano.

The other Hondas of Takaaki Nakagami, Joan Mir and sta𝔉nd-in Takumi Takahashi were left 20th, 21st and 24th and last on Friday.