Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP’s Álex Rins and Fabio Quartararo ended a sunny but somewhat chilly first day of the Gran Premio de España Practice session in 15th and 20th place respectively. The teammates will have to take part in tomorrow’s Q1 session.
Rins needed some time to adapt to the Yamaha at the Jerez track. He had finished the nippy FP1 session in 17th place but booked significant progress in the final stages of the Practice session, shaving nearly 1.3s off his morning time. He clocked a 1’36.959s on lap 18/23 with ten minutes to go, at the start of the usual time attack battle for a top-10 position and a place in Q2. The effort moved him up to 12th position in the live timing, and it was strong enough to hold him in 15th place, 0.934s from the top.
After the tricky morning session in only 16°C, which Quartararo finished in 14th place, the Frenchmen was keen to make steps in the afternoon, which was 3°C warmer. However, with 36 minutes remaining on the clock in the 1-hour Practice session, he became one of the many riders who suffered a crash, losing him valuable time. Luckily unharmed and quickly back on his feet, El Diablo was soon ready to resume his work. He set a 1’37.382s best time on lap 17/22, which put him in 20th place in the Practice timesheets, 1.357s from first.
Tomorrow, the teammates will be back in action for FP2, held from 10:10 – 10:40 (GMT +2). The qualifying sessions will follow from 10:50 – 11:30, and the 12-lap Sprint will start at 15:00.
MASSIMO MEREGALLI
Team Director
The conditions in Jerez are chillier than in previous years. We didn’t have a great start in FP1, and that put us on the back foot. Fabio’s crash in the Practice session also lost him valuable time – that didn’t help him either – but we are happy he is OK. Álex did manage to significantly reduce the gap to the front this afternoon, but we are still far from the top, and both our riders are in Q1. We’ll work throughout the evening to find something to improve the turning for tomorrow. The FP2 session will be important for us to prepare for qualifying and the Sprint.
ÁLEX RINS
Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Rider
There were many, many crashes today. I don’t know why. But, overall, for us, it was a day with many problems on the bike. We are still struggling with the same problems we had in the last few races. It’s so difficult to turn the bike. We tried different things, but still the main problem is the same. I tried to follow someone in the last minutes of this last practice and was able to make a comparison. We need to try something more for tomorrow. But we’re trying a little bit of everything. We’ll also check on Monday if the new testing items can help us turn.
FABIO QUARTARARO
Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Rider
I was struggling on turning, just like Álex, and I think we are looking a bit too much into breaking areas and are missing a lot on turning. I tried the hard front, but I locked the front straight away in Turn 7. Then, we tried something with the soft tyres, but it didn’t go really well. Then, on the last time attack, we made some mistakes. But, anyway, the main issue is the turning, and that one thing is what’s making our life complicated. I want to check the data from the previous year, check deeply what the difference is, and then make a plan from there.
- From Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP press release
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