Lorenzo “not so satisfied” with first day at Silverstone
Yamaha Factory Racing riders Jorge Lorenzo and Ben Spies experienced the famed English weather today as they took to the Silverstone circuit for the Grand Prix of Great Britain’s first day of practice. The day started well with the morning’s session run on a dry track but the rain soon made an appearance, making all but the last 10 minutes of the afternoon’s heat wet. The sun came out for the final few minutes and created some dry patches which allowed the times to start to come down.
Both riders ended the day with good base wet and dry set ups but looking for more dry time tomorrow for further changes ahead of the afternoon’s qualifying session. Lorenzo was less satisfied than his team mate having struggled to match his pace of last year.
Jorge Lorenzo – Position 3rd Time 2.04.756 Laps 30
“I’m not so satisfied with the day. In the morning I tried to ride the same pace as last year but I was one second slower. In the afternoon I wanted to ride in dry conditions but it started to rain so we had to ride on that. I made so many laps with the rain tyre that it was destroyed whereas some of the other riders switched to a fresh tyre so were faster than us. I think we have a good set up for wet conditions now. We must focus on improving both myself and the bike, I will try to be on the front row tomorrow.”
Wilco Zeelenberg – Yamaha Factory Racing Team Manager
“The first free practice went ok, it was quite cool this morning with no big problems. We took some comments from Jorge to improve the rear grip a little. The afternoon was tough with a half dry and half wet track. Jorge stayed out to get a rhythm and find a good feel for those conditions. In the end his feeling is ok so we are quite satisfied with the package we have at the moment.”
Massimo Meregalli – Yamaha Factory Racing Team Director
“Due to the weather conditions we couldn’t do a final dry race set up on either side but we are not so far off and Ben is quite satisfied in both dry and wet conditions. Tomorrow the weather forecast is good, it should be dry so we can finalise the job we couldn’t do today and I’m confident both our riders will be ready to challenge for the best possible qualifying positions.”
Source: Yamaha Racing