Cal Crutchlow was the second fastest rider of the day at Jerez, and despite his complaints that his Tech3 Yamaha is the same as last year’s with just a small electronic update received at the start the season, and the fact that he is upset regarding the rumors that Yamaha is in talks with Pol Espargaro for 2014, the British rider is still wringing everything out of his bike and doing a sterling job with it.
MotoGP rookie Andrea Iannone was the fastest Ducati rider, two tenths faster than Nicky Hayden, who has a very swollen right hand due to tendinitis and more than three tenths faster than Andrea Dovizioso who doesn’t like the Jerez track.
The Pramac Ducati rider seems to have found the root of his arm problems, a too tight undersuit (which is a problem that Casey Stoner once had).
Michele Pirro seemed to be seventh heaven because he’s racing again, even though he is testing a brand new GP13 with a new engine, swingarm and frame and he was 12th fastest and very close both Ducati factory riders.
Check out what the rest of the riders had to say following Friday’s two free practices after the jump.
Cal Crutchlow – 2nd “It was quite a tough day because we made a lot of changes that meant the bike was set-up completely different than the way we had it at the test.
We made it a little bit longer and lower to give me a good feeling because while I was able to set the fastest time at the test, the track temperature was much higher today and it meant the bike was not working perfectly with the set-up we ran at the test.
I was changing bikes during FP2 and doing a lot of laps to try as many things as possible and I am positive for the rest of the weekend.
We’ve got a few ideas to improve even further tomorrow and I will sit down with my crew tonight and have a good look at the data to come up with a plan of attack for the rest of the weekend.
My Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team is doing a great job again and being competitive and fast today gives us a lot of confidence to take into Saturday and Sunday.
”Alvaro Bautista – 6th“I wasn’t particularly comfortable with the bike today and we struggled for rear grip from the first session.
I barely have to open the gas before the rear starts to slide so we were working this afternoon to find a solution but didn’t come up with the definitive answer.
This gap to the guys in front is not huge so we can close it down considerably if we can improve in this area tomorrow.
At this circuit it is very important to be precise coming out of the corners and I am sure that when the team find a solution tomorrow it will be a different story.
”Andrea Iannone – 7th“I’m pleased with the result.
I knew I could be faster here at Jerez than at the other tracks, but it’s not over yet.
We still have to face tomorrow’s busy day, and we’ll work with a view toward the race because I’d like to maintain this pace and obviously go straight to Q2, making the best use of the tyres we have available.
Although we had initially thought otherwise, maybe the best choice for the race is the hard tyre, which we tried in the second practice session.
The soft slides a lot, perhaps because of the high temperature, so we decided to try and change.
We’re improving a lot with the team, and I’d like to be able to immediately ride like I know that I can.
I hope that my arm, which was much better today, will allow me to do that.
I had a good feeling with the bike, though not the same as during the tests, and tomorrow I’d like to work on my pace and try some changes with the electronics.
”Aleix Espargaro – 9th“This first day has been very positive, I found a great feeling and confidence.
Today I was not the fastest CRT rider and I always like to be ahead, but I am calm because we could see that we had a better pace than the rest.
Although we were pipped to the best time by two thousandths of a second over one lap, our pace is better overall.
The important thing is that we have a great pace and that the bike works perfectly.
We lacked a bit of grip on the rear, the bike was sliding out a little, but I guess it’s normal on the first day with the track not yet in perfect condition.
We finished 1.
1 seconds off the fastest time and I’m happy with this.
Tomorrow we will have to keep working hard in the morning session and it would be great to go directly into Q2.
This afternoon we made a change to the swingarm but it was not as productive as we expected, so tomorrow will take a step back.
”Nicky Hayden – 10th“We used a similar setup to what we had here at the test, with a few modifications that we’ve made in the last two races.
In the morning, I felt a little better than I had in the test, and my pace was okay.
Then I suffered a lot on the warmer track this afternoon, especially with edge grip, which really affected the turning.
The bike was pushing wide in the fast corners, which are so important.
I’m also having a problem with my wrist; between Qatar and Austin, I developed some tendinitis and a lot of swelling in the joint.
It was manageable in Austin, but it’s worse here, which makes this weekend even more challenging than it already was.
Still, if we can improve the bike in a couple of the key corners, we can be much closer.
”Andrea Dovizioso – 11th“It was really difficult this afternoon, and I’m not completely sure why.
The grip was much worse for all the Ducati riders, and it was much harder for me to be precise and stay on my lines.
We must understand if we can improve that sensation through the setup, but this is the bike and I just have to adapt.
I’m trying to stay calm and work in order to have a good session tomorrow morning.
”Michele Pirro – 12th “It was a positive day in the sense that I’m back doing what I like most—competing! There’s work to be done because I’m still losing time in some sectors, but I’m satisfied overall because I haven’t raced since November.
Tomorrow we’ll try to continue to dial in the GP13 because this is a new package in terms of frame, swingarm and engine.
We’re trying to improve everything, take another step, and get things ready for the race.
I hope to pay Ducati back for the faith they’ve placed in me, and I really want to thank them for this opportunity.
”Bradley Smith – 13thBradley Smith“The nice thing about today is I was able to go a little bit faster than I managed at the test, so the gap to the front is still quite similar.
I haven’t lost anything but I’m a little bit disappointed that I didn’t gain anything as well.
I am a lot happier after this afternoon’s session though and my main focus was on trying to ride the bike in a smoother way.
It is so important to be smooth on a MotoGP bike and I’m still working on that.
I’m losing most of my time in sector 4 and we’ll check some data and see where I can improve.
But it was another good day of learning and I’m looking forward to taking another step forward tomorrow.
”Stefan Bradl – 14th“Today has been a tough day for us as we are a bit far from the guys in the front.
I also crashed in the afternoon session but I am okay.
This morning, since the beginning, the bike set-up was good and we expected to do even better in the afternoon but, at the end, it was completely the opposite.
We tried different tyres but we took the wrong direction losing the rear grip and, automatically, we lose even the confidence with the front-end.
So we came back to the same setting and same tyres choice of this morning improving the overall situation but it was not perfect yet.
I tried to push to reduce the gap and I lost the front crashing out.
Actually we have been a bit unlucky today but I am not particularly worried because we do have the capacity to improve in tomorrow’s practice”.
Randy de Puniet – 15th“We did a great job and I am satisfied with that side of things, but seeing my name in fifteenth position is something I do not like so much.
I think we could be higher up the order.
In the end I finished three tenths off the best CRT time, so as far as times are concerned we are going well, but here everything is very tight.
Today we found a good chassis setting, the feeling was really good with both the front and the rear.
Yet at some points of the track the bike was still sliding a lot.
I think we lost time due to this, so we will work to eliminate the excess sliding.
Tomorrow we will try to improve rear grip.
We also tested various tyres; with this heat I guess that we will use the soft in the race, but we will have to see how it performs towards the end of the race.
The hard rubber is more reliable here, but it slows us down too much.
”Danilo Petrucci – 16th“We had to try a new configuration of suspension and electronics with hard rubber, then unfortunately the engine broken and I had to use the second bike that had a base set up.
After trying the harder tire, we switched to the soft one and we did our best time.
We still have a lot of work from on the electronics, also to have a good set up of the suspension.
”Claudio Corti – 18th“We are working on things, we need to reduce the gap with Barbera´s FTR and he was very fast today.
We still have a bit of a problem with the electronics and the fact that today we had the new FTR chassis and we tested a few things made us loose some time in terms of working towards finding the race pace.
The new chassis has proven itself to be faster, the new parts that we have tested here so far have allowed us to improve and tomorrow we will continue working with it and will concentrate on improve the lap times and in finding a good race pace.
We already know what the tire choice will be so now we just need to concentrate on the pace.
”Colin Edwards – 19th“ This morning went pretty good from the get go.
We tried a couple of things this morning on one bike and one bike was better than the other so we stuck with it.
In the afternoon we had a brake issue during the beginning of the session because one set worked good and the other one didn’t, so we can’t figure out what pieces we needed to change, so we wasted a little bit of time there.
Went back out and on the soft rear tire and it felt good, went right back down to the pace we were doing this morning.
We also made a change to the bike to make it turn a little bit better and then we thought we could try the hard tire just in case we had a ware problem on the soft tire.
Went out and did a few laps and it just didn’t work, probably about a second slower.
Overall today I feel good on the bike, we just have to make it happen tomorrow and Sunday.
”Bryan Staring – 21st “I’m not really happy because we have struggled with a lot of spinning from the rear today, which meant I couldn’t push as hard as I wanted.
I am sure that without this problem we could have done much better.
I couldn’t open the gas where I wanted and that meant I didn’t have confidence with the bike.
The team have some clear ideas about how to solve it and I am sure we will improve tomorrow.
”Karel Abraham – 23rd“My shoulder hurts a lot.
In the morning we tried it without anesthetic and it was really bad.
During afternoon I let the doctors to give me an injection, even when nobody except of doctor Costa recommended it to me.
It was better, but it will be hard to make the race.
I´m able to ride about four fast laps, but whole race has twenty seven laps.
The biggest problem are right turns and braking at the end of final straight.
I´ll undergo another medical examination after which we decide if we´ll continue.
“Lukas Pesek – 24th“This morning we had problems with the traction control did not work properly.
During the afternoon we also had problems with the anti wheeling.
Still a lot we need to work with the chassis, not today we managed to do a lot of laps.
The goal is to have the same feelings had in the March tests with the new bike”.
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