The Moto2 riders were no luckier than the Moto3 competitors as they experienced conditions more suited to a wild west movie than a GP free practice. Due to the wind and sand blowing around at Losail the track became slippy on Friday evening. In addition to the sand and the breeze, spells of drizzle also forced the riders into their pit boxes to seek refuge twice, the first time with half an hour to go and the second with ten minutes remaining. Nakagami, fastest for the second consecutive day, continues to put preseason favourite and second fastest rider today, Pol Espargaro, in the shadows. Like in Moto3 the conditions prevented the Moto2 riders from imrpoving their Thursday lap times.
Small steps always carry you forward. The aim of the MAPFRE Aspar riders at this early stage of the season is to gradually improve each session and to understand how to make those improvements and stay on the path to progression. Lap times, due to the Losail track conditions, did not improve today though – but
Nico Terol and Jordi Torres did improve their feeling with the bike. Both of them focussed their work on their front end feeling, which is essential for the fast corners at this circuit. Improving in this manner has meant improvement in terms of timesheet positions, with Terol finishing ninth and Torres fifteenth.
9th Nico Terol 2.02.923 (12 laps):
“The set-up and the feeling with the bike have improved compared to yesterday so I’m satisfied with those aspects. I was riding more smoothly and the front end was giving me more confidence. We reduced chatter and we’re turning better on fast corners, as we’re more stable. It’s a shame I wasn’t able to register a better lap time. When the track was empty we had to come into the box because of the rain. We had a few things to test so it would have been good to have more track time, but it was better than yesterday. I love this circuit so I was hoping for a smoother day, we’re having to try quite a few tweaks. We’ll keep working hard, we’re close to the top five and getting there would change our perspective.
15th Jordi Torres 2.03.360 (13 laps):
“I’m happy to have improved and we tried a couple of new things despite the conditions. All the previous work running at this track has helped and today I went for it to try and get up near the top. Now it’s clearer what I need to do, my references are set and I like riding here. I want more front end confidence but we’re on the right track and we’ve been working really hard since we got to this circuit. The team are making things easy. We’re taking small steps forward and I’m convinced that tomorrow we’ll see that work reflected on the timesheets”.
Mapfre Aspar Moto2 Press Release
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