Jordi Torres & Nico Terol fight chatter in opening Valencia practice sessions

As in MotoGP and Moto3, the riders who dominated the first practice session of the Valencia GP continued on top in the second. The Moto2 class saw Johann Zarco become the fastest rider of the day after topping the two practice sessions.

The Frenchman was one-tenth faster than Luthi, who continued his considerable progress on this final stretch of the season. Newly-crowned World Champion Tito Rabat ended the day in third place.

Times in Valencia were fast today, under the circuit record, but tomorrow they are sure to continue to drop. All riders begin this season finale trying to end the season strongly.

This is a home race for MAPFRE Aspar, and the riders were keen to do their best on Friday. It was a strange opening day in which both Jordi Torres and Nico Terol had problems with the front end of their bikes.

Excessive chatter made them lose their way slightly, and they ended the day eighteenth and twenty-sixth, respectively.

18th Jordi Torres 1.36.492 (43 laps):
“Today we were able to enjoy the fans here in Valencia, who always give us a big boost when we ride. In both sessions we were up at the top at the start, but in both cases we reached a point when we were wanted to push hard and had front end chattering. This had never happened to us before. In the afternoon we tried to make a small change; we did not want to make big changes, as this year we have lost our way when we have done that. Today our adjustment was not productive. This afternoon we will look over the bike, because feelings as strange as we had today with the bike is something that has not happened all season. I hope that tomorrow we will solve our problems through hard work.”

26th Nico Terol 1.36.853 (40 laps):
“I Expected to have better feelings at this circuit, which has always suited me very well. Last year I had a very good pace, and were fast in preseason here. The new chassis from Suter has given us many problems throughout the season, and we’ve never found the best way to ride fast. It makes me angry to find it hard to get a good feeling here, at a track where I usually go fast easily. There are three corners where we are suffering a lot of chatter. That’s why I ran wide on a couple of occasions. In any event, and even though today we have not gone well, we have made big changes throughout the day and tomorrow we will work to find the way, somehow. I really want to end the year well, so I’m not giving up. I will work as hard as is necessary to try to solve the problems from today and ride fast.”

Source: Aspar Media