Tito Rabat takes the best time at Sepang, Pol Espargaro 4th

Tito Rabat was the protagonist during the two sessions of day one of the Malaysian GP.

The Tuenti HP 40 rider set the pace in today’s sessions, consistently in the top positions, and established himself in first position about halfway through the session, finishing the day with today’s best lap time.

Pol Espargaró, who once again suffered from tyre problems, finished in fourth position at 0.168 seconds behind the third placed Scott Redding.

Axel Pons displayed a very good performance and finished the day in 16th place.

Pol Espargaró – 4th place – 2.07.321
I don’t feel comfortable, I don’t have a good feeling with the bike, I don’t enjoy riding it and I’m not fast. It’s difficult to see something positive, right from the start things started to go wrong. We’re working a lot on the bike but we just can’t be fast with this tyre. This feeling is a bit frustrating because in Misano I got the pole and won the race, and here with a different tyre I’m suffering a lot. With this we have to fight and we can’t do anything more than continuing to work hard to try and get the best possible result with what we’ve got.

Tito Rabat – 1st place – 2.07.321
I’m very happy with how the first day went. Riding here each year is a lot of fun because it’s a very nice circuit. In the morning the track was a bit dirty but in the afternoon it had improved. We’ve been working with both tyres we have to see which one works better for us with regards to qualifying and race. We’ve got a little bit of chatter but I’m happy because we improved it a bit every time I went out on track. I hope we continue to make progress all weekend.

Axel Pons – 16th place – 2.09.098
This morning when I went out I felt good on the bike. I didn’t post a fast lap time but I was confident that with a bit of work we could improve. That’s what we did this afternoon and we improved the best lap time and also the race pace. We also improved the bike a bit, and even though we need to change a few more things to get more rear grip, I’m confident we’ll see things improve. I prepared well the week before coming to Malaysia and I feel strong for this weekend.

Source: Pons Racing