The Frenchman set a lap of 1'58.667 in the first free practice session this morning but could not match his pace in this afternoon's session whilst his Spanish team mate experienced the opposite. Espargaro struggled with his set-up in the morning session but later found his feet after changing back to the base setting that served him so well at last month's Grand Prix at Mugello, Italy.
Randy de Puniet
"We had a good session this morning when we put the soft tyre in and had a lot of grip mid-corner. We changed a few things with the gearbox setting this afternoon and it didn't work so we'll have to take a step backwards tomorrow. We have also done some tyre testing and again the feeling wasn't the same as this morning but it is important to try these things in practice so you can rule certain things out. At the end of the session we got back into the groove we had this morning so we'll use those same settings tomorrow."
Aleix Espargaro
"I am happy with this afternoon’s session because we improved a lot from this morning. I wasn't feeling comfortable with the bike but we made some big changes on my second bike and went back to the setting we had at Mugello. Like Brno it is a fast track and quite similar in a few other ways so we were able to make some big improvements quite quickly and my lap time was dropping further when we ran into some traffic at the end. Anyway this afternoon's session has given me confidence for the rest of the weekend. Everything we tried worked so we know what we need to do tomorrow."
Press release courtesy of Power Electronics Aspar.
Randy de Puniet
"We had a good session this morning when we put the soft tyre in and had a lot of grip mid-corner. We changed a few things with the gearbox setting this afternoon and it didn't work so we'll have to take a step backwards tomorrow. We have also done some tyre testing and again the feeling wasn't the same as this morning but it is important to try these things in practice so you can rule certain things out. At the end of the session we got back into the groove we had this morning so we'll use those same settings tomorrow."
Aleix Espargaro
"I am happy with this afternoon’s session because we improved a lot from this morning. I wasn't feeling comfortable with the bike but we made some big changes on my second bike and went back to the setting we had at Mugello. Like Brno it is a fast track and quite similar in a few other ways so we were able to make some big improvements quite quickly and my lap time was dropping further when we ran into some traffic at the end. Anyway this afternoon's session has given me confidence for the rest of the weekend. Everything we tried worked so we know what we need to do tomorrow."
Press release courtesy of Power Electronics Aspar.
