Pol Espargaró supreme on the first day in Phillip Island

Pol manages 4 laps in the 1.34 when none of his rivals can break the 1.35 threshold. Tito Rabat and Axel Pons work on the set up and finish 17th and 21st respectively.

Pol Espargaró has presented himself bursting with energy on day one of the Australian GP, setting a fastest time of 1.34.578, quicker than the second fastest, Scott Redding, by 0.8. The rider of the Tuenti Móvil HP 40 team has adapted quicker than anyone else to the low temperatures and the wind on Phillip Island and marked the two quickest laps in the two free practice sessions. Tito Rabat and Axel Pons reached 17th and 21st place respectively. Both had been working on the setup and were trying to find ways of improving the morning time, when they were hindered by the arrival of rain in the last third of the second session.

POL ESPARGARÓ
I’ve been having a lot of fun on the bike and that shows in the lap times. Phillip Island is a beautiful circuit, and even though I’ve never won here, I believe this time I’m in the position to try to do it. The weekend has started well with setting the best times in the first two sessions, and I will continue to give everything in every practice. The title is almost impossible to reach now, but I want the champion to always remember that we didn’t make it easy for him in any race. Tomorrow we’ll continue to try things because in Moto2 you can never relax, not even when you’ve got an advantage of almost a second. The wind is very annoying and makes it difficult for you to change directions but it hasn’t stopped us going fast.

TITO RABAT
It’s a shame that it started raining just as we’d solved the problems with the brakes that had stopped me from going fast in the first part of practice. I also believe that we haven’t quite got the right reference points on the track yet, but the important thing is that we realized on day one and we have time to correct this. This is a circuit that I like and I’m sure that tomorrow we can make a step forward.

AXEL PONS
The beginning of the GP weekend has not been that good, but I’m convinced that we’ll do better tomorrow because we have quickly identified our weak points. In the morning we went faster than in the afternoon, in a session that we couldn’t finish and make full use of because of the rain. I believe I’m ready for tomorrow and want to improve by a good number of positions.

Source: Pons Racing