ENCOURAGING FP FOR TEAM KÖMMERLING GRESINI AT MONTMELÓ
Team Kömmerling Gresini Moto3 has enjoyed a good start to the seventh event of the 2019 Moto3 World Championship season, which is currently taking place at the Montmeló Circuit near Barcelona. There was a lot of anticipation to see Gabriel Rodrigo back on track after undergoing surgery for arm pump in both forearms – and he showed up in perfect form.
The young Argentine rider was third-quickest today as he lapped consistently around the Catalan track aside from the final minutes of FP2, when few drops of rain began falling on some areas of the circuit.
Riccardo Rossi also had a positive start to the #CatalunGP as he finished 16thand only eight tenths of a second away from today’s fastest lap-time. The Italian mainly worked on the bike set-up with soft tyres, in what is – to his own admission – one of the most challenging tracks on the calendar. He also completed a “mini” long run, with the 54 showing good pace for eight laps with used tyres, even though tomorrow will be all about trying the harder compound and finding the best pace with it.
3rd– GABRI RODRIGO #19
“It was a good Friday, even if we had a head start because of testing here a few weeks ago; still I found myself very comfortable on the bike. We are continuing in the same direction of the previous races and we already have a good race pace with hard tyres, which is something not everybody has at the moment. I’m still not sure that it’s going to be the best choice for the race, but if it is then we’re in a very good position already. I finally feel good: I still have a swollen forearm because of the surgery, but I had no discomfort when riding my bike.”
16th– RICCARDO ROSSI #54
“This is a difficult track for me, but we come from a weekend in which we showed less than what our potential could have allowed us to. We need to start getting some results and we need to do it as soon as possible. Before the rain came I could have done a quicker lap, but some traffic got in the way. We worked more on the bike today than on our race pace, so tomorrow we’ll have to concentrate on the hard tyre in order to decide what to use during the race.”
