GONZALEZ UP TO SPEED ON OPENING DAY AS HE IS THIRD IN AUSTRIAN PRACTICE 1
Manuel Gonzalez had an encouraging opening day by setting the third quickest lap time in the first practice session at Spielberg. The Spaniard, who never had an easy time at this track, did manage to make the difference as the #AustrianGP got underway. The excellent feeling with this bike allowed him to push to the limit as he logged a 1’34.216secs lap-time which translated in a third position in Friday’s classification, as he is at the moment in the group of riders to be seeded directly seeded to Q2.
Albert Arenas had more of a challenging day: the modifications done to the set-up did not help the Spanish rider and the rider #75 is currently sitting in nineteenth place. There will be another opportunity tomorrow for him to try and get into Q2 from the main door, but also to work on further modifications in search for the optimal feeling, before giving it all in qualifying and aiming at a spot in the first rows of the grid.
3rd – MANUEL GONZALEZ #18 (1’34.216)
“It was a really positive first day as this circuit doesn’t really suit my riding style and in previous years I really struggled at some corners. Today I felt good immediately with the bike and it was easy to push. This track is very risky when it comes to finding the limit as it’s easy to crash, especially in the afternoon with such high temperatures. I’m really happy with this opening day, we have a good base set-up and the experience helped us: now we need some little tweak ahead of tomorrow but we’re quick and confident ahead of the remaining days!”
19th – ALBERT ARENAS #75 (1’35.023)
“It was a very difficult day and we couldn’t follow the program we had set for ourself. We’ll try to work as hard as possible tomorrow in order to turn this weekend around after this challenging start. We’re not giving up and we’ll try to make the difference in qualifying and aim at a spot on the front rows.”
