Barbera May Risk Setup Changes In Pre-Race Warm-Up

The MotoGP riders have certainly been the most fortunate so far at Assen in terms of the weather, with ninety minutes this morning to make up for yesterday’s free practice cancellation and virtually all of it taking place in the dry. They were also blessed with sunshine in the afternoon, leading to a hotly contested battle for grid positions that saw surprise performances in the shape of Ben Spies in second place and Marco Simoncelli on pole position.

MAPFRE Aspar rider Héctor Barberá worked relentlessly throughout the two and a half hours on track today to improve his feeling with the rear end of his bike. After a difficult weekend at Silverstone the Spaniard has made major set-up changes and even though he now feels much more comfortable with his Ducati he is prepared to try a risky experiment in tomorrow’s warm-up. Héctor starts from thirteenth on the grid but is targeting a top ten finish.

13th Héctor Barberá 1.36.590 (30 laps):
“We did a couple of tests with the set-up this morning that improved the bike quite a lot. Above all we were looking to improve our feeling from Silverstone. I gave my best on the set-up we had and I think it would be difficult to go any faster. We have to find something more, some more solutions, to take another step. Right now what we have is a tall bike with hard springs and that allows us to lap at a decent pace but it is limiting if we want to push further. Hopefully I can set high 36s or low 37s tomorrow, which would put me in the top ten. In the warm-up we are going to try something completely opposite to the setting from today and see what happens. It is risky but we have nothing to lose by trying it and anything we get from it would be great.”

Source: Aspar Media