Barbera happy to find good base setting despite early crash setback

MAPFRE Aspar rider Hector Barbera continued his preseason in Sepang today, and with good results although the day has begun a bit mixed for him. The Valencian slowly started to get a good feeling with the bike. But in his fourth lap he crashed out in turn 9 after a braking error when he changed direction. Fortunately he came away unharmed and afterwards he returned to work on some chassis modifications to find the best position on the Ducati. Near the end of the day he posted two consecutive laps of high 2’2s and finished the session in 11th as the second fastest Ducati rider behind Valentino Rossi. The MAPFRE Aspar rider started the second test of the year with a laptime only 0.06 seconds slower than his best laptime from the first test at the same track

Héctor Barbera 2.02.645 (54 laps): “At the beginning of the day I didn’t feel at ease, I didn’t feel comfortable on the bike. I’ve experienced it even stranger today than on the first day at the previous test. I don’t know if this is because of the heat, but you notice how slippery the track is. I’ve had a crash in the fourth lap, I breaked too hard when changing direction and hit the ground. Fortunately nothing happened and my mechanics repaired the bike quickly. From there we made many changes and I started to improve. We made the rear suspension harder, changed the swingarm. All those changes really helped us to improve and I’ve become increasingly confident. After lunch we continued working on the chassis of the Ducati and gradually I found my rhythm until I did two consecutive laps in 2.02s near the end. In the previous test the first day I did a 2.03.8 and today I went a second faster. I’m satisfied because we started with a good base setting and I found the feeling quickly.”

Source: Mapfre Aspar Ducati