
There were grey skies again at Jerez this morning but thankfully, unlike yesterday, the clouds shifted to make way for sunshine and ideal conditions for the second day of Moto3 preseason testing. Some overnight damp began to clear as soon as the riders took to the track from around 11am, from which point the timesheets were largely dominated by home favourites. The exception to the rule was Germany's Jonas Folger, one of four riders lapping within the same second in a tight lead bunch.
MAPFRE Aspar rider Folger's main focus today was finding more rear grip from his Kalex, largely through experimenting with suspension settings and ride height. The German's best lap came during an hour of practice reserved exclusively for the Moto3 class, when he was the fastest rider on track with a 1'47.719. On the other side of the MAPFRE Aspar garage Eric Granado continued his adaptation to the Moto3 class, the Brazilian also working on his position on the bike as he gathered crucial information ahead of his rookie season. The youngster finished up with the 19th fastest time, around 2.7 seconds off the day's quickest rider.
4th Jonas Folger 1.47.719 (46 laps): “The weather was much better today than yesterday and we were able to get some work done. We continued to focus on finding more rear traction and found a more positive setting that gave me more confidence. We did a lot of set-up work at Valencia without worrying about the lap times and here we have been able to reap the fruit of those efforts to an extent. We have worked on used tyres and fresh rubber and the feeling with the bike was great. We'll try to get a race simulation done tomorrow and see how consistent we can be with the set-up we found today. We are gradually closing the gap to the guys at the top so I am satisfied that we are doing a good job.”
19th Eric Granado 1.49.534 (48 laps): “Today has been a fantastic day with perfect weather. We had to wait a little while to get out on track because the asphalt was damp from the overnight rain but we got down to work around lunchtime and played around with the ride height, geometry settings and suspension. We also got to test some different tyre compounds and as well as gathering a mountain of information the lap times were pretty good too. It's a steep learning curve but hopefully we get the right weather to stay on an upward trend tomorrow.”
Mapfre Aspar Moto3 Press Release
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