Promising start in Spain for Di Giannantonio and Bastianini
The first day of practice for the Grand Prix of Aragon, round number 14 of the 2016 Moto3 World Championship, was successfully completed today by the two Gresini Racing Team Moto3 riders, Fabio Di Giannantonio and Enea Bastianini.
Di Giannantonio closed the combined classification of the times in fourth position with a lap time of 1’59”494, set at the end of the afternoon session: in the morning the 17-year-old rookie from Rome worked well with the team, which has resulted in significantly better performance in the afternoon on used tyres then, with new tyres, “Diggia” finally put the seal on a good day with a fast lap, less than half a second behind Brad Binder, the fastest today.
His team mate, Enea Bastianini, was eleventh in the time sheets with a lap in 1’59”783: third fastest in the morning session, the 18-year-old rider from Rimini then failed to complete a clean lap with the new tyres in the final stages of the second session, but he still showed the speed to remain among the fastest.
FABIO DI GIANNANTONIO (4th – 1’59”494)
“This morning we started off well: during the FP1 we have always used the same tyres and the final position was only due to the fact that I aborted my last attempt. I exceeded track limits and for that I thought they would have deleted my lap time, so I slowed down. That said, we still had some issues on the bike, which we were able to solve in the afternoon. Consequently, in the second session our lap times improved significantly, and in the final stages, with new tyres, we set a great time. I’m very happy with this first day, now we start to think in which areas we can still improve a little: we will focus our work on fast corners, where we still lack a bit of rear grip”.
ENEA BASTIANINI (11th – 1’59”783)
“The day started quite well in the morning, although actually the track didn’t offer a lot of grip so, as often happens, FP1 was not very significant. Then, we started the afternoon session with a tyre with which we had already made a few laps, setting pretty fast lap times, so I’m satisfied, even if we are still struggling a little bit to maintain a consistent performance. After several laps we feel the drop of the tyres, especially at the rear, so tomorrow we will work on this aspect. In the final stages I put the new tyre, but I have not had the opportunity to complete a clean lap because of traffic. My mistake, I would have entered the track a bit before to avoid it: it’s a pity, I would have liked to close the session with a fast lap, but it’s okay for now”.
FAUSTO GRESINI
“Today we did a good job with both riders, therefore I’m satisfied: Fabio set good lap times, while Enea was a little bit slower at the end of the day just because he failed to take advantage of the new tyre in the final minutes of the second session because of traffic, otherwise he would have been in the top positions too. This means that tomorrow we can hope to clinch a good starting position with both our riders”.
