Friday Quotes – Japanese GP: 125cc

2nd Julián Simón 2.00.864 (12 laps):
“I’m really happy to be back amongst the frontrunners again today. I tried a new set of leathers that I only received for this race but it is too small and it made it hard for me to ride. It’s a shame because I like this track and I think we could have gone faster. If we can improve the set-up in the cycle part of the bike I’m sure we can go much faster tomorrow but in general I’m rally happy with the performance of my Aprilia. The track was really cold and it was hard to get the tyres up to temperature, which is why the lap times weren’t as quick as we might have expected.”
 

7th Bradley Smith 2.01.608 (14 laps):
“There is not much grip out there so the lap times are quite slow and it’s difficult to get a good feeling. We usually come here when it’s much warmer and in this heat everything changes – the setting, the feeling, everything. I think we have a good base setting for the dry but it looks like it might rain for tomorrow so it will be difficult to get prepared for the race, which in theory should be dry. Anyway, we have to stay focused and whatever the weather brings we have to try and work hard to improve and be as well-prepared for the race as we can be. We made a few changes to the front fork to improve the feeling of the bike today and they did work, but we still have to make more improvements.”
 
 
12th Sergio Gadea 2.02.333 (16 laps):
“We tried a new exhaust today that worked well but I had a lot of problems with the front end of my Aprilia. It was folding a lot and I felt like I was going to crash in a lot of the corners. Despite this problem and the cold temperatures I tried to stay out and get a lot of laps in, to give the mechanics as much information as possible so that we can work on some positive changes for tomorrow – although if it rains, as is forecast, we won’t have much chance to try anything. If it rains we’ll try and work on our wet pace and if it doesn’t we’ll have an opportunity to keep working towards the race.”