After the long dark winter the MotoGP riders emerged blinking into the floodlights tonight as the Losail Circuit played host to the first exchanges of the 2013 season. Current World Champion Jorge Lorenzo struck the first blow, snatching the fastest time at the end of a session dominated largely by his returning team-mate Valentino Rossi. It was a dominant start to the weekend for Yamaha who took the top three positions tonight, whilst CRT honours went to Aleix Espargaró, who was just 1.1 seconds off Lorenzo's best effort.
POWER ELECTRONICS Aspar rider Espargaró was without doubt one of the riders of the day: ninth fastest overall, ahead of four factory prototypes and a massive 1.7 seconds clear of the second fastest CRT. On the other side of the garage Randy De Puniet was the third fastest CRT on track, fifteenth overall after struggling for front grip around the dirty and slippery desert track.
9th Aleix Espargaró 1.57.843 (15 laps): “I am really happy, I don't even know myself where that performance came from tonight. The bike worked perfectly and it allowed me to ride with ease and the more I saw the lap times drop the more I wanted to push. I was able to follow the factory bikes around certain parts of the track, which is something that has never happened before. Clearly the new ART is working even better than last year, it is more nimble and it is helping me a lot in the direction changes. The engine has a bit more grunt, especially at the top end and the feeling here is even better than it was in Malaysia and Jerez. Anyway, it is only the first session and we have to keep our feet on the ground. As usual on the first night here at Losail the track was very dirty and we will need to adapt our set-up as the grip improves over the next couple of days.”
15th Randy De Puniet 1.59.633 (16 laps): “I was looking forward to the season starting but to be honest my feeling with the bike wasn't what I expected in this first session. I have struggled to get a feel for the front end and I'm not sure why but I just couldn't brake where I wanted to. I was having to brake early to stop myself from running wide and that affected my corner speed. The positive side is that it's only the first session, we still have a lot of work ahead of us and the track was very dirty tonight so maybe that was the root of the problem.”
Power Electronics Aspar Press Release
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