The first free practice session of the 2017 MotoGP World Championship, has been positive for Reale Avintia Racing team. Loris Baz was sixth fastest after in the 45 minutes of the season and he was the second fastest Ducati rider, just 0.017s behind Jorge Lorenzo. This was a great start for the French rider who finished inside the top 10 and, if the rain forecast for tomorrow is right, he will be already in the first Q2 of the season.
The first night at Losail was also positive for Hector Barbera. Obviously his position in the timesheet is not the best, either as his lap time, but after almost one month recovering from a collarbone fracture, and with three days less at this track comparing with his rivals, he had quite good feelings on the bike. Tomorrow, if weather conditions permit, the Reale Avintia Racing team rider expects to continue improving the set up of his Ducati.
“The grip was really bad at the beginning of the session, and the feeling was very different from the test, so we wait a little bit until the track was cleaned. The wind was also stronger than in the test, so we had to find the best braking point on the main straight. We could not test something for the race as my second bike had some issues, but overall I’m really happy because I was fast with the soft tyres. And honestly I did not expect to do this lap time on the first day. This is a good track for Ducati, because are fast on the straight. This is not my case because I’m too tall, but today we demonstrated that this bike is not just fast on straight line.”
“My feeling was quite positive, and although the collarbone obviously hurts under acceleration, braking and changing direction, it is something I can handle. The biggest gap for me was loosing the last test, because the rest of the riders have done three more days and we just had 45 minutes to set up de bike. The electronics are important and my electronic engineer need to know what I need to go faster, but in just one session this is impossible. But I’m happy because with one test less I finished just one second behind the fastest Ducati, and this is something positive. I also spend a lot of time sitting in my garage, I need to keep energy for when I will really need to push hard.”
