MAPFRE Aspar riders Jordi Torres and Nico Terol were putting in the laps today, with 44 and 43, respectively, upon arrival at Phillip Island. Torres has the good memories of his comeback last year to fall back on, so started with a buzz on Friday. He concluded the first two practice sessions for the Australian GP in fourth. His best time came in the morning and he was just four tenths off Rabat. Teammate Nico Terol established his best lap in the morning as well, although an issue with his tyres prevented his improvement in the second session. He placed eleventh and will look to move higher up tomorrow.
Jordi Torres
"Last year we had a good feeling at this track and made a big comeback. If I remember correctly, I went on to finish in eleventh place. You have to be ready and take advantage of those good memories to push strong all weekend. Obviously you also need to rectify the mistakes made then, to avoid a repeat. So far we have done well today, our result has been positive and we still have room for improvement. The wind has been bothering me all day, but this is something inherent to this track, so I will get used to it soon. The wind made us imprecise when taking some corners but the rest of our work has been very productive. Tomorrow we will work to try to make the bike turn in a little more at maximum lean. I'm happy because today we found a good feeling and a good pace, so I hope we continue like this tomorrow."
Nico Terol
"Today I had a good pace, and followed an upward progression for most of the day. However, I destroyed three tyres, which took us slightly away from our intended workload. If this had not happened, then I think I could have gone quicker, but late in the afternoon I noticed that the bike lost a lot of grip. Fortunately, this problem happened to us the first day rather than later, and I’m sure that tomorrow both my mechanics and the Dunlop technicians will work to ensure the situation doesn’t repeat itself. The new asphalt Phillip Island is really good; it means the track has more grip and this gave me much better feeling when opening the throttle. We have to keep working, and I think we can get the bike turning in more. On the fast turns I have very good cornering, but we have to improve on the slow ones."
Mapfre Aspar Moto2 Press Release
