Bastianini on top as he returns to competition in Valencia. Di Giannantonio looks to improve
Gresini Racing Team Moto3 racer Enea Bastianini topped the timesheets at the end of the first day of Free Practice for the Grand Prix of Valencia, final round of the 2016 Moto3 World Championship, with a best lap of 1’39”556. His teammate, Fabio Di Giannantonio, was instead 22nd in the combined classification of the today’s two sessions with 1’40”326.
Back on track after being forced to miss the Malaysian GP due to the injury to a vertebra remedied in Australia, Bastianini was therefore able to quickly regain the right feeling with his bike, setting in the final stages of the afternoon session, with soft tyres, a performance that allowed him to beat Spanish riders Guevara and Mir and thus close in the lead the combined classification. A promising start for the 18-year-old rider from Rimini, who tomorrow will work especially with the harder tyre looking for improvements in terms of race pace.
On the other side of the garage, Di Giannantonio said he was pleased with the work done in the first two session of the weekend and he is confident of being able to improve tomorrow, a day in which he will work together with the team looking for a better behavior of his Honda NSF250RW machine under braking.
ENEA BASTIANINI (1st – 1’39”556)
“I feel good phisycally: sensations are good and I can ride how I want. This morning, however, I needed a bit of time to regain the right feeling and I was not particularly loose on the bike. In fact, I also had a minor crash in the final stages of the first session. It was not a very encouraging start, but the guys in the team helped me to stay focused ahead of FP2. In the afternoon we started from scratch and I immediately felt better; also the bike has improved, especially on the front. In the end we also tried the soft tyre, making some other changes on the set-up, and we set a good lap time. Tomorrow we will still continue to work especially with the harder tyre, looking for a progress on race pace and checking in particular the behaviour of the bike with old tires, something that is making us struggle a bit at the moment”.
FABIO DI GIANNANTONIO (22nd – 1’40”326)
“I think that this first day of practice has been quite positive, after all: this morning, making laps alone, I was able to be faster than usual and the end of the session I was also able to improve my performance. We then started the afternoon session without making changes to the bike, and with higher temperatures the feelings were immediately better. Tomorrow we will continue to work on the bike set-up mainly to improve braking: at the moment I’m struggling to stop the bike and this does not allow me to be fast on corner entry. Obviously 0.8 seconds from the top is not a small gap, but we know that we have room to improve!”.
FAUSTO GRESINI
“I’m really pleased that Bastianini was able to return immediately at a great level after the injury that forced him to miss the race in Malaysia. It’s undoubtedly a great start in an important weekend, where Enea can be runner-up in the Championship. Tomorrow we will continue to work mainly for the race, but the results of this day are a strong confidence boost. As for Fabio, we know that his potential is higher than that shown today, so we are not worried and we look forward to tomorrow, confident that we can improve”.
