Friday Quotes – Japanese GP, 250cc

3rd Álvaro Bautista 1.53.836 (18 laps):
“At the start I didn’t feel too good on the bike and I couldn’t brake hard in the slow corners. We improved in this area but on the cold track it was difficult to get a rhythm together. It was really cold today and we’ll have to wait and see what happens tomorrow but we have to stay focused and put in 100% effort regardless of the conditions, there are no excuses.
The lap times aren’t as fast as last year so there is plenty of room for improvement. It’s the second race of the year and the goal is to pick up as many points as possible. With just one session on a Friday you have to work well, and quickly, and not take your eye off the ball otherwise you soon run out of time.”

7th Gábor Talmácsi 1.54.594 (15 laps):
“It’s the first day, I’m seventh fastest and I think I need a few more laps to understand how the 250 behaves at this circuit and to get my reference points. The day went well despite the cold, although I still need to get more out of the Aprilia under braking. I’m happy because all the changes we made were for the better but we still need to analyse the data and improve further for tomorrow. If it rains then it will rain for everybody so we just have to stay focused, not make any mistakes and stick to the job at hand. I tried two different front tyres today and one rear – the results were good but we have another couple of things to try tomorrow, weather permitting.”

8th Mike Di Meglio 1.54.595 (15 laps):
“It was so cold today that it was difficult to get the most out of the bike. I haven’t ridden this bike here before so I had to get used to things lap by lap but I noticed that my Aprilia was moving around a lot under braking. It is strange to only have three practice sessions because it all goes by so fast and it’s tricky to set the bike up. It looks like it’s definitely going to rain tomorrow so it will be important to get a lot of laps in and gain confidence with this bike in the wet.
The cool temperatures today meant that we were a long way off the best times here but the riders at the top were close together so I want to keep gathering confidence tomorrow and get as close to them as I can.”