This evening, at the Losail International Circuit, venue of the first Grand Prix of the 2014 MotoGP World Championship, both riders of the Team GO&FUN Honda Gresini have been able to take advantage of two practice sessions on the track getting positive feedback ahead of tomorrow evening, when will take place the fourth and last free practice session, followed by Qualifying 1 and Qualifying 2.
Aboard the “Factory spec” Honda Factory RC213CV, Bautista was once again the protagonist of a great session, setting the third fastest time with 1’55”240. As a further demonstration of his competitiveness, the Spanish resulted also the fastest with the medium tyre, beaten only by two bikes that can use an extrasoft compound as per regulation.
The second evening in Qatar was positive also for Scott Redding: the English MotoGP rookie closed just six tenths away from the best Honda RCV1000R Open, despite losing almost the entire first practice session yesterday night. 1’56”997 was Scott’s fastest lap, which improves the one obtained in the recent Losail tests.
Alvaro Bautista (3rd - 1'55"240)
“I'm happy because at the moment I continue to be the fastest rider with the medium compound tyres, just behind the motorcycles that can use the extrasoft option. In addition, my feeling with the bike has improved slightly compared to the recent tests. We need to further improve the behaviour of the bike with worn tyres, because after only 3 or 4 laps the rear tyre performance drops a lot. Tomorrow we still have one more free practice session to try to improve the situation, then we will give the maximum in qualifying to try to get a good starting position, even though it will be hard to beat the bike that can use the extrasoft rear tyre, which offers an advantage of about 4 tenths of a second”.
Scott Redding (17th - 1'56"997)
“Today was definitely better: we fixed the problems with the electronics and we were able to take advantage of these two practice sessions. I am comfortable on the bike, although I still struggle a bit going into the corner: every time I try to push more, I lose the feeling with the front end. Tomorrow, during the last free practice session, we will focus on this aspect, trying to improve the situation. Finally, we will try the harder tyre, to evaluate its behaviour”.
Go&Fun Honda Gresini Press Release
