Catalunya GP – Friday Quotes

250cc

2nd Álvaro Bautista 1.47.329 (23 laps):
“The most important thing about today, with this heat, was setting a good pace. It wasn’t excessively fast, as in the other two classes, which shows that the track surface isn’t 100%. We had a setback with the engine on my first bike and I had to do the last run on my second one. The engine was a bit better on that one but I could tell the difference in the suspension. We could have done with improving a little more but I’m happy because we set a good pace. Let’s say if the track is in better shape tomorrow so that we can continue to make progress. After three or four laps in the long corners the bike is sliding round a lot, the tyres are suffering in the heat and it is difficult to control. We’ll try and work out what was wrong with the first engine tomorrow and improve the set-up to be ready for the race.”

5th Mike Di Meglio 1.47.675 (20 laps):
“I’m happy because my arm has responded well from the operation and it practically doesn’t bother me at all. The new bike is amazing and I’ve felt comfortable on it straight away – it is so much more stable than the old one. We still have a lot of work to do on the chassis but we’ve got a good early feeling and that’s positive. I think we’ve made a fantastic start to the weekend and both the team and myself are satisfied and hopeful that we can continue like this. I was able to feel the performance from the engine of my Aprilia immediately so I just focused on riding alone, putting my pace together and gradually improving. Aprilia and my team have done a good job on the base setting of this bike and I suppose that is why we were able to be so competitive today.”

Balázs Németh (DNF):
“It has been a bit of a tough opening day – firstly because this is a completely new circuit for me and I couldn’t get a feeling for it and secondly because of an electrical problem with my Aprilia that robbed us of a lot of time. We tried to fix it any way we could but we couldn’t find a solution and my session effectively ended early as a result. Basically the first three gears were working fine but in fourth and fifth the bike was running out of power. We’ll have a look at the telemetry with the mechanics tonight to try to shed some light on the problem and make sure we’re in good shape for tomorrow.”

125cc

1st Julián Simón 1.52.311 (19 laps):
“It is fantastic to have this great weather. The session went well but when it is this hot it is hard to get the bike running perfectly. We have to work hard with it tomorrow to make sure we have a machine we can rely on come Sunday. I’m happy with the way this first session went even though we can improve in a couple of areas, especially the chassis. Hopefully this weather will stay for the whole weekend so that we can see a ‘normal’ race on Sunday! The lap times are still very slow – partly because of the weather but partly because of the track conditions. I’m sure that as the MotoGP and 250 guys put more rubber down the grip will improve. It is good to start out on top and the whole team is confident we can set the pace again tomorrow.”
 
2nd Sergio Gadea 1.52.806 (20 laps):
“We’ve come here on the back of good results at Jerez and in France, with a hiccup in Italy, where we had good pace but didn’t manage to get a result. We’re working well again here, we’re second fastest and I’m pleased with my pace throughout the session. We’re still not quite there with the set-up because my feeling isn’t quite 100% so we’ll have to keep working hard tomorrow to make sure we stay at the front. Montmeló is a very fast circuit and the Spanish riders tend to be strong here, as we saw today, so hopefully we can keep it going and maybe even see a Spanish treble.”
 
11th Bradley Smith 1.53.824 (21 laps):
“Today has been quite tough and we’ve done a lot of work towards the race – basically trying to work out if we can keep our pace up in this heat. We have a decent base but our setting doesn’t seem to work as well on the bigger tyre so I’m struggling to get on the pace. The lap times are not coming at the moment and the bike isn’t perfect but luckily we think we’ve worked out the problem and I’m happy that we know which way we’re going with it tomorrow. We know we need to use the smaller tyre and we’re pretty confident. We still have some more compounds we want to try so it will be another busy day tomorrow. The position isn’t too bad and I’m sure we can improve it a lot on day two.”