Barbera Pleased With “Positive First Day” At Brno
The MotoGP World Championship roared back into life after two free summer weekends today, with the Czech Republic Grand Prix marking the start of the season run-in. Dani Pedrosa, Jorge Lorenzo and Casey Stoner picked up where they left off before the break and although Lorenzo was the winner of the race here last year today was dominated comfortably by Pedrosa. Even though this is one of the longest circuits on the calendar the lap times were relatively close today, Pedrosa aside. The Spaniard’s best lap of 1′.56.328 compares to the pole record of 1’56.145 set by Valentino Rossi in 2009.
The target for MAPFRE Aspar rider Héctor Barberá was to make constant improvements and although he struggled to do so in this morning’s opening session he made good progress in the afternoon. A slight geometrical change to the ride height and suspension settings of his Ducati gave the Spaniard more confidence and he was able to set a consistent rhythm in the 1’58s, with a best effort of 1’58.120 – eight tenths quicker than his best effort this morning and 1.7 seconds off Pedrosa’s lap record pace.
11th Héctor Barberá 1.58.120 (28 laps):
“We did a good job today because this morning I was struggling to improve my lap times, I just kept hitting a ceiling. In the afternoon we made some set-up changes to my Ducati and things improved considerably. We dropped the ride height and change the front and rear shock settings, which instantly gave us more confidence and pace. We still need another six or seven tenths to be where we want but tomorrow we will look to find this by working on power delivery and handling. Overall it has been a positive first day and the team has done a great job.”
Source: Aspar Media