GONZALEZ ALREADY UP TO SPEED ON OPENING DAY AT PORTIMAO
It was a positive day for the two Moto2 Gresini standard bearers, with Manuel Gonzalez able to top the timesheets in the morning’s free practice at Portimao – and despite track conditions far from ideal. He was able to show great speed in the afternoon, too, as he set the fourth quickest time in practice one (1’42.559secs), placing himself in the provisional group of riders with direct access to Q2.
Behind him in FP it was his teammate Albert Arenas, second fastest, on a track that was dirty to due recent adverse weather conditions. He had a bid more of a challenging time in the afternoon, but he was still able to set a personal best time of 1’41.921secs. He is currently ninth (inside the provisional Q2 lot) ahead of the final practice session.
The two QJMOTOR GRESINI Moto2 will have to confirm today’s performance to earn a spot in the top 14 and spearhead their attach on pole position in Q2.
4th – MANUEL GONZALEZ #18 (1’42.559s)
“It’s been a quite positive day: track conditions were not ideal in the first session, but I was able to put together a strong performance without too much effort. Then in Practice1 we tried different tyre combinations, and the last outing gave us the feeling we were looking for. We still need to work on the front-end and I wasn’t able to do the perfect lap, but we surely have a good pace to aim at the top three in tomorrow’s qualifying.”
9th – ALBERT ARENAS #75 (1’42.921s)
“The track was quite dirty on the opening day, so conditions were not ideal. We have good speed, but we need to keep working in order to be ready for the race. We’ll try to have a good qualifying tomorrow, today is only the first day after all!”
