Strong start at home for Torres and Terol
On the opening day of the Valencian GP, Pol Espargaró set the early pace. The only class in which the title is not up for grabs this weekend, the Moto2 category still has plenty of excitement to offer. Newly crowned World Champion in the intermediate class, Espargaró was quickest in both practice sessions, but the differences between riders were minimal on Friday. Of the home riders, Espargaró, Esteve Rabat, Jordi Torres and Nico Terol were the most active, placing inside the top ten.
Riding at home this weekend, the MAPFRE Aspar riders are not lacking in optimism. Two of the strongest riders in Moto2 at the moment, Jordi Torres and Nico Terol have big abitions for the final race of 2013. The duo were amongst the frontrunners for the entirety of the day and looking for continual improvement. Torres is riding with an injured foot –burnt in Japan- but any doubts about his fitness were erased within a couple of laps. He Spaniard completed 34 laps, taking the sixth best time of the day and clocking a time just half a second off the top spot.
Teammate Nico Terol finished two places back, with 46 thousandths of a second difference. He was affected by a strong afternoon wind, although on his final lap of the session he clocked a 1.36.129 time.
6th Jordi Torres 1.36.083 (34 laps): “Despite the injury that I still have to my right foot, I am enjoying my riding. I am not suffering as much as I thought. The wound is in a difficult spot, but I have had my boot adapted to get around this. I can feel a bit of discomfort, but it’s only light. Today we worked very well on our setup and were able to put ourselves in a strong position for the weekend. I still have to understand a few responses that the bike is giving. Thanks to our pace we have been in the top ten all day, and we also have everything clear. We just need to get the bike turning in a little more on corner exit tomorrow. We are close to an ideal setup, so tomorrow we will test a couple of things to try and confirm our feeling.”
8th Nico Terol 1.36.129 (36 laps): “As we saw today, things are very tight in Moto2. This morning we felt good, but in the afternoon the track conditions varied slightly and we found it hard to get the best setup. The wind made riding difficult. In any case, I am calm because we have a consistent pace going. We have a lot of data available and we will improve tomorrow. We rode for part of the day with used tyres and this was useful for checking the grip level on certain corners. We still need to improve our confidence with the front end, in order to get the bike turning more, but we just need another small step.”
Source: Aspar Team
