Barbera upbeat after FP1

After months of speculation and anticipation MotoGP finally landed at the legendary Silverstone circuit today. A fast and not particularly technical circuit on paper, the track proved to be equally so in reality as the riders got to grips with its high-speed, sweeping turns. The favourites for success were off the pace for much of the session although order was restored towards the end as Lorenzo and Stoner clocked the fastest two times shortly before the end, ahead of a light rainfall that limited the action in the final couple of minutes.

Páginas Amarillas Aspar Héctor Barberá made consistent progress throughout his first session at the British circuit, gradually picking his lines and climbing the timesheets before posting a best effort of 2’08.452 – the eleventh fastest overall. Héctor remains some two and a half seconds adrift of his countryman Lorenzo, but enjoyed his first contact with Silverstone and is hopeful of closing the gap tomorrow.

11th Héctor Barberá 2.08.452 (22 laps): “Silverstone is a really nice circuit, it’s just a shame it rained for the last few minutes of the session. It is completely new to us and at the start it took me a while to find my reference points. I did a run of eighteen laps and gradually improved, getting a better idea of the line to take. The first and last sectors are really good fun and I enjoyed myself riding, so I hope that continues tomorrow. You discover something new on every lap so I’m not going to get obsessed with making massive changes to the bike, just keep putting laps together and gradually discover every little secret this circuit has to offer. It doesn’t look like it but you need a smooth set-up because there are a lot of fast direction changes. We played a little bit with the electronics at the start just because the front was coming up on the way out of the turns.”

Source: Team Aspar