Barbera still needs to shake some rust off after summer break

After a short summer break following the USGP at Laguna Seca the MotoGP riders returned to action this afternoon at Brno, where Jorge Lorenzo, Dani Pedrosa and Valentino Rossi dominated the opening session of the Czech Republic GP. The Spanish pair are both looking for their first premier-class victory at this circuit whilst the Italian has a long history of success here, starting with his first 125cc win back in 1996.

For Páginas Amarillas Aspar rider Héctor Barberá today was a case of getting used to the Brno circuit on a MotoGP bike and the Spaniard struggled with braking and corner entry. Three pit stops helped him to gradually improve his pace and on his eleventh lap he set a personal best of 1’59.910, which he was unable to improve on in the closing stages due to light rainfall eight minutes from the end. The rookie believes his team have a clear direction to follow tomorrow and he is confident of making further improvements ahead of the afternoon grid shootout.

15th Héctor Barberá 1.29.910 (16 laps): “We have tried a tonne of different things with the front end today because that’s the area I had the most problems with. The forks were rebounding a lot in corner entry and I couldn’t get a feel for the tyre. It’s fair to say we struggled to fix it but I’m not concerned because it’s only the first day. I didn’t know the track with this bike so we have to work hard tonight to make sure we’re in good shape for the morning session. Apart from that we had a few drops of rain at the end of the session and weren’t able to try our final set-up change and also I’m sure that the hard tyre would have been better. Anyway, we know exactly where we need to improve and how to do it so I’m sure we’ll take a giant step tomorrow. I love this circuit and I was really fired up at the start of the session – unfortunately it just didn’t pan out as we’d hoped. It’s not a problem, we’ll just keep working to improve tomorrow.”

Source: Aspar Ducati Team