The second day of practice for the British GP has not been easy for Reale Avintia Racing riders. For FP3, the track conditions were not the best after some showers in the morning, and on a damp but drying track they were not able to improve and get direct access to Q2. During FP4, the conditions were much better and with the sun shining again for Q1, both riders improved their pace from Friday. But it was not enough and Hector Barbera will start from 16th place of the grid, while Loris Baz will do so from 21st, after they finished sixth and eleventh in Q1.
But although the position is not ideal, both riders are confident to be able to recover and grab some points in tomorrow’s 20-lap-race.
“As we could see yesterday I feel much more comfortable with the set-up from Barcelona. Maybe the bike works better with the one we have been using in the last couple of races, but the bike needs to be ridden in a different way and it wasn’t possible for me to do this me. Now I pushed my limit a bit further and I was faster immediately. The only positive thing today was that I lost just 0.3s to Alvaro (Bautista) ,who is the fastest rider on this bike. Redding was slower. Yes, he is ahead of me on the grid, but just because he got the pass to Q2 this morning. Overall I’m satisfied and I think that my pace is quite strong for the race. We must start well and then we will see where we can finish the race.”
“Today was really difficult. The track was not in the best possible condition this morning, but we didn’t go so bad. But in FP4 and qualifying, it was a disaster. We had to work just with one bike because of the mileage of the engines and with this, it was impossible to improve. The changes that we were testing didn’t work and as I had just one bike to evaluate these changes, we lost too much time in the garage. In qualifying I tried something that we had left from FP4 and this also didn’t work. But then I went out with my second bike for the last exit and my feeling was really good. I think that it was possible to do two fast laps, but I had a strange feeling with the brakes and we didn’t improve. No we are way back on the grid, but we have a good race pace and I am confident we will recover some positions.”
