GONZALEZ TOPS TIMESHEETS ON FRIDAY IN SEPANG
The penultimate event of the season has got underway today at the Sepang International Circuit. After finishing in fifth place in the morning’s free practice, Manuel Gonzalez was the quickest rider in Practice1 courtesy of a 2’05.576secs lap-time – and obviously with a provisional Q2 seed in the pocket. He will have to confirm his performance tomorrow morning to then aim at a strong qualifying result – which so far this year has been his weak point.
His teammate Albert Arenas also showed some important speed as he mainly focused on the longer run performance in this opening day of action in Malaysia. He finished this Friday in seventh position with a 2’06.149secs lap-time and he is also, at the moment, in the group of riders to be seeded to Q2.
1st – MANUEL GONZALEZ #18 (2’05.576)
“It was surely a positive first day as I felt good with the bike straight away – we managed to be strong from the start. It’s a pity that I was unable to work on the long-run performance in the afternoon session and have a better idea of the tyre behaviour ahead of the race, but we managed to set the fastest time and the feeling was good with both front and rear ends – the latter a bit more on the limit. We did a good job: our base set-up works really well at this track and with my riding style. Tomorrow’s qualifying will be crucial to have a shot at the podium on Sunday.”
7th – ALBERT ARENAS #75 (2’06.149)
“It was quite a positive day: we started from the base set-up we found in Thailand and continued to work on it with a the same different approach, in order to make the most of the rider-bike combination. We focused on our race pace with used tyres, while tomorrow we’ll also work on the single-lap performance, which is our strong point.”
