The first day of the Grand Prix of Argentina on the new Termas de Rio Hondo circuit represented a difficult challenge for Team GO&FUN Honda Gresini’s riders: after a good first free practice session - held on a still very dirty track -, who saw Alvaro Bautista third fastest and Scott Redding in 11th position, the Spanish and the English, despite lowering their lap times in the afternoon, closed the first day of practice in 11th and 22th position respectively.
Tomorrow both rider will work on bike set-up trying to overcome the problems encountered today and they will focus on tyre choice for Sunday’s race, a work that couldn’t be done today because of the changing track conditions.
Alvaro Bautista (11th - 1'42"029)
“Today we faced a very dirty track: in these conditions it’s very difficult to understand which tyre can work properly. In any case, we need to work hard on the bike set-up to improve its behavior: In this moment I am forced to use a lot the throttle to make the bike turn, and doing so I stress a lot the rear tyre, and as a result the tyre performance drops quickly. As happened today from morning to afternoon, the track conditions change very quickly: today, the other riders were able to improve more than us. Surely tomorrow the conditions will be even better, but we need to do our best regardless. After that, we will wait until the last minute to decide which tire to use for the race”.
Scott Redding (22th - 1'43"165)
“The first free practice session was good, despite a very dirty track, while in the second session I struggled with bike set-up: we tried various solution to try to find the right direction, and we have already some ideas ideas on the changes to be made tomorrow, especially regarding the suspension. The situation is complicated even with regard to the tyres, which drop a lot after only 4 laps: therefore, we don’t know yet which tyre we will for the race. We’ll decide it tomorrow, when the conditions will be definitely better, with more rubber on the asphalt”.
Go&Fun Honda Gresini Press Release
