Barbera Looks For Improvement After Tough Start To Weekend
The Grand Prix de France got underway beneath warm early summer sunshine at Le Mans today, with Spanish riders particularly looking forward to the weekend following an historic podium treble last year. First blood in the MotoGP class went to Casey Stoner, who dominated both sessions and ended up 0.4 seconds clear of second place, although just 2.5 seconds covered the entire field. Close lap times at one of the least technical circuits on the calendar means that the racing should be just as tight on Sunday.
Héctor Barberá climbed back on board his Ducati for the first time since his first-lap crash last time out in the Grand Prix of Portugal. The MAPFRE Aspar rider spent the day getting back into his rhythm, starting out using the same setting that he used here last year. However, it didn’t work as hoped and despite several changes throughout the day he could finish no higher than fourteenth fastest, two seconds off the day’s best time but confident of making major improvements tomorrow.
14th Héctor Barberá 1.35.902 (22 laps):
“Today was a tough one for us. After crashing without really knowing why in the last race I found it hard to get my feeling back. I started out this morning with the same setting as last year but I didn’t feel comfortable. My riding style has changed a lot since then so our data is not much use and we had to take a step backwards. This afternoon I improved and got a better feeling as the laps went by. It was a case of patching things up between me and the bike after the crash in Portugal. I am finding it hard to get the bike turned on corner entry and I’m sure once we do that the lap times will come. I spent the whole day on a used race tyre to get data for Sunday so that should also mean we have room for improvement in the lap time. We have to keep working hard to return to the position where we should be tomorrow. Physically I feel good, I have done a good job with my personal trainer and I’m not feeling any problems.”
Source: Aspar Media
