Two tight sessions kick off Le Mans for Alex Rins

The opening day of the French GP saw cold temperatures in the morning as the riders took to the resurfaced track for the first time, and very tight times in the afternoon.

Team SUZUKI ECSTAR riders Andrea Iannone and Alex Rins used the FP1 session to become acquainted with conditions and find the ideal set-up. Rins approached the session as a MotoGP “rookie”, having missed last year’s Le Mans GP due to injury, he used the entire session to find settings.

In FP2 the track was much warmer. Both riders improved their times but finished FP2 in 14th and 15th respectively, although they were not far from the top time in the tight field. Tomorrow’s FP3 session will be crucial as the riders aim to cement a place in Q2.

Alex Rins:

“Well, I think today was good, we focused a little bit on trying to get confidence with this track because it’s the first time for me here with the MotoGP bike. But I think that the most important thing here today was data and completing laps so the technical guys can try and get a better setup for tomorrow. I think tomorrow I can improve, today the track conditions were OK but I was trying different tyres to test the degradation, and so I never tried a fast lap.”