MotoGP Le Mans Day 1 Rider Quotes
Jorge Lorenzo – P1
“I am very satisfied because from the beginning we started with a good setting and I was relatively fast, quite comfortably. In the afternoon we improved the bike a little bit and we went even faster with quite a big difference, a couple of tenths, to the rider in second place. It wasn‘t just one lap, we also had a good pace so it was a very good start to the weekend. Let‘s see if tomorrow we can increase the pace a little bit more and prepare for the race to our best capabilities.”
Valentino Rossi – P10
“We tried a lot of different things for the setting because this morning I wasn‘t fast enough, but unfortunately in the afternoon the situation was worse and we didn‘t find the right way. In fact, in the morning I was also quite slow and for this reason I didn‘t try the third tyre from Michelin, because we didn‘t have time. I will try it tomorrow morning.”
Massimo Meregalli – Yamaha MotoGP Team Director
“Jorge had a strong start to the weekend and so far he is on schedule with the progress that he made in FP1 and FP2. He has been fast and consistent since the first session and was in a class on his own in FP2. Vale suffered from a lack of stability on his bike since the beginning of the morning session and whilst trying to solve it unfortunately it compromised a few other areas and the bike became heavier to ride, making him more uncomfortable. Both riders were able to compare different tyre choices, but it‘s too early to judge. Tonight we will certainly work on some solutions that we will test in FP3 tomorrow to further improve the set-up of the bikes.”
Jack Miller – P18
“I feel pretty good and I don’t think the final position shows how happy we are with our performance today. The lap times are pretty close and we know we have a lot of margin to improve, but overall it was a good day and we’ll keep working hard to be even stronger tomorrow.”
Tito Rabat – P20
“This morning I struggled a little bit but we were able improve in FP2 and I was able to find a lot of time. I’m within two seconds of the best pace and the gap from 11th is not huge. I can improve my technique by turning with less metres to keep more corner speed and if I can do this I am sure we can make a big step tomorrow.”
Andrea Iannone – P2
“This afternoon we managed to improve over the morning session after getting to grips with the behaviour of my Desmosedici GP and adapting it to the characteristics of this circuit. We’ve still got some work to do tomorrow in this direction, but for today I am quite satisfied. Regarding the tyres, this afternoon we also tried the new rear tyre that Michelin brought to Le Mans. The French manufacturer is proving to be very responsive because it wasn’t necessarily expected that it would immediately work better than the standard one. My bike still moves about a bit coming out of the corner and we still have some spinning, but the situation has improved a lot over Jerez and so now we have to continue to work to try and resolve these two problems.”
Andrea Dovizioso – P5
“I am quite satisfied with this first day of track action, because we started off well and we were quite quick, even though maybe I had expected to go a bit quicker in the afternoon session. We also tried a new rear tyre, which modified my feeling with the bike a bit, but we need to continue to work on it to get to know it better. In any case I am convinced that we have room for improvement tomorrow and that our pace, apart from that of Lorenzo, is in line with the fastest riders.”
Aleix Espargaró – P6
“It’s been a positive day and we made many improvements. After the test in Jerez we had some positive hints and now we are trying to take advantage from that. My feeling is better, I can ride the bike more easily and be more effective. This circuit is not easy for us, we are strong in high-speed corners but we suffer in the stop-and-go, so this is the area we are focusing our efforts. We need to find better balance and try to be more competitive in that. We continued the work with the winglets: I don’t think they can give us a real advantage in such a tight circuit as Le Mans, but it is important to get ready for faster tracks such as Mugello and Montmelò. I also tried the new Michelin tyre, it was important because the harder one will not be a good choice and to have two softer options is good, although I need to test them further.”
Maverick Viñales – P7
“Today’s been a tough day, the lap time is not bad but I still don’t feel totally confident. We are struggling a lot with traction, I can’t be so effective in exiting the slow corners and we are working with different set-up options but so far we couldn’t find the proper way. The new soft tyre is not bad, I liked it, probably the harder one will not be an option so we will work on the other two. We have much information coming from Jerez, we are trying to find the best ones and so far we couldn’t’ find it, but with the hard work we are used to doing I believe we will find better configurations for tomorrow.”
Pol Espargaro – P4
“The opening day went very well and just like in Jerez, we kept improving. In Spain we made some steps forward and then during the test we managed to comfortably ride a competitive pace, however, today we managed to progress even more. Of course, it’s just the first day but for sure it has been a better start in comparison to other Grand Prix’s. We improved the rear grip level and now I have the chance to ride the bike in the way that I want to. Furthermore, I’m even more pleased because the team is working very well and every time I stop in the garage and we make some modifications, I can actually feel them, which wasn’t always the case last season and this is much more important than the actual result today. In addition, I have to say that I’m very happy about the job that Michelin is doing. The tyres might not be ideal in every corner of the track, but they really have made huge leaps forward in the last weeks and we can feel a clear improvement compared to the previous races.”
Marc Marquez – P3
“Today was demanding. We knew this circuit would cause us to struggle a bit, but we’re overcoming things fairly well. I have a good pace and I’m feeling good, although we’re losing some time on both of this circuit’s hard acceleration points; it’s something that’s difficult to recover from afterwards. We’re working on this aspect and we’ll see if we can take another step forward tomorrow, both with the electronics and with the setup of the bike. It will also be important to make a good decision about which tyres we’ll use on Sunday, although it seems that both of the compounds we have available are pretty good.”
Dani Pedrosa – P8
“We started the day well, but in the end we didn’t finish off as we had hoped. The start of the second session also went well, but after that we were evaluating some technical changes that didn’t give us the results we wanted, and made me lose pace. We won’t make many changes to the bike’s setup tomorrow, in order to try to concentrate on my riding and on improving the pace for both the race and qualifying.”
Hector Barbera – P9
“We did our job today and this ninth position is a good way to start. We have a different plan for this weekend compared to Jerez. There, we were very fast on the first day but we went moving backwards as the weekend continued. Today we were 13th in the morning and ninth in the afternoon, so I hope to keep this progression. This is a track I really like, but it features too much changes of direction and with my size it’s hard to move the bike. But after all the changes made on the set up by my crew, I enjoyed riding the bike at the end of the session. I feel more comfortable in every exit and we have to keep this direction and try to push harder in FP3 tomorrow to secure a place in Q2. But my main focus is to be ready for the race distance on Sunday. This is the most important thing.”
Loris Baz – P15
“I think the day was okay. My feeling with the bike has been great from this morning, I have a good pace and I also managed to do some fast laps. Of course the negative from today are the crashes, this is never good, but the positive is that we know why they happened. Anyway it was a shame because this afternoon I was quite sure to be in the top ten positions with the new rear tyre. I’m working like in the other races, because although this is my home race it would be stupid to pass the limits. The crashes today had nothing to do with this fact, because I always try to give my 100% on the bike. Tomorrow I hope the temperature is good during FP3 and I hope to be able to go straight to Q2. We just need to improve the bike to make it more nimble.”
Cal Crutchlow – P12
“I was quite pleasantly surprised by today, I honestly felt really good on the bike. Yes, I made a mistake into the final corner when the bike snapped and I actually tried to go straight on. As it snapped, however, my hand was still on the brake lever and when the rear wheel came back into line, it made my hand pull on the lever and I crashed. I went back out quickly, but because we had a very slight technical problem, I only managed to get one more fast lap in. I really felt good then however, and I set my fastest lap immediately, so I’m confident because the new softer tyre I was out on appeared to be working quite well. I only got one lap on it, and the heat wasn’t quite in it yet, whilst other riders were setting their best times on their fifth lap on the tyre. So it’s positive for tomorrow.”
Bradley Smith – P14
“In all honesty, it was a positive day overall for me even if the result doesn’t really show our true potential or reflect what we achieved. I felt that it was more important to do long runs and gain some more experience with our new setting from Jerez. This was in order to try and ensure that I’m comfortable with the bike, my adapted riding style and how we can apply it to this track. The team and I only made some small changes with the M1 to try and gain a direction for tomorrow, however, we know more or less what we need so we didn’t try anything too drastic. We wanted to find out what is best for me and we also focused on building a bike so that we can go directly into Q2 tomorrow and have a good starting point for Sunday. We tested both new front and rear Michelin tyres and now we have some useful information about the new rear options. Also, for the first time this year I am comfortable with both compounds of front tyre. Like I said, the end result doesn’t really show the positives for today but we’ll be able to show our potential tomorrow when it counts.”
Scott Redding – P13
“The feeling with the bike and the tires is much better compared to Jerez. I am disappointed for the crash: I put the new rear tyre which gave me confidence and maybe I pushed a bit too much. I could stay in the Top 10 but we will be there tomorrow. We can improve and that’s what we will try to do from this evening studying the data we have available. I’m happy with how I could use the tires. I am sure that the feeling is coming back and this is a nice sensation.”
Danilo Petrucci – P11
“I did not know what to expect out of my hand. For me it would have been nice to finish the two rounds and I honestly did not expect to finish close to Top 10. I am very happy because this race for me is like a test. I do not know these tires and I was missing so much riding my bike. I thank my team: as in Qatar they put me in the position of having to think very little and just try to ride well. I’m really happy but I must be calm: I must avoid problems in this week end to arrive at Mugello in the best possible condition.”
Eugene Laverty – P16
“Our bike worked well at Jerez but this track has a completely different character and it didn’t feel good this morning. I didn’t have good feeling with the rear in corner entry, there was no grip on entry or exit and that meant I couldn’t turn the bike. In the afternoon we improved the lap time by two seconds, which is huge. I am really pleased with the way the guys turned it around so quickly – even my first lap in FP2 was already half a second faster than what I managed this morning. Once we got the rear gripping better, everything else fell into place. So we made big progress and now I feel optimistic. The aim for tomorrow is to fight for the Q2 although if it doesn’t happen it’s not a big problem – we saw in Jerez that I can make up some positions even on the first laps. The race is the most important thing so we’ll keep working hard on the set-up and hopefully keep improving like we did today.”
Yonny Hernández – P17
“We managed to find a good rhythm in the second session today after a little crash this morning. It wasn’t anything major, I just lost the front on the way into turn 8. In the afternoon we had to run in some new front brake callipers and we lost a little time, and then at the end of the session I had a faulty rear tyre. I could tell there was something wrong almost straight away but I tried to push for a couple of laps to improve my pace. I am confident because we know what we need to improve on the bike and tomorrow we will be working hard to take a big step forward.”
Alvaro Bautista – P21
“This morning the problem was in coming out of the tight turns with the bike being rather twitchy. In the afternoon we tried to improve in this area, managing to shave a bit off our lap times, but in trying to find more stability we lost a little something in terms of handling. So we need to focus on these issues, trying to improve every time we go out”.
Stefan Bradl – P19
“Today we really had a lot of work to do, beginning with the last comparisons between the old and new frame we started at Jerez. This is a test that we did in both sessions. We decided to carry on with the new version, which provides some advantages going into turns. But there wasn’t much time, so there are still a few things left to sort, especially in terms of the rear. Tomorrow we’ll focus our efforts on improving coming out of turns as well, based on what we found today”.
MotoGP FP3 will be broadcast live on FoxSports 5 from 1815 this evening before an hour of live coverage of qualifying starting from 2205, also on FoxSports 5.
