Maverick Viñales 5th on day one at Valencia, Luis Salom 8th

Good weather conditions helped the two Páginas Amarillas HP 40 riders on this first day of free practice sessions at the Ricardo Tormo circuit in Cheste.

In both sessions, Maverick as well as Luis played key roles. Viñales is still highly motivated by his recent victories and his battle with Finnish rider Kallio for the second place in the Moto2 championship.

Maverick’s day has been complicated, trying to find the perfect setup for his Kalex but not quite succeeding. He and the team have more work to do tomorrow to enable them to fight for a good qualifying position in the afternoon.

His teammate Luis Salom made an important step forward and pushed himself into the top eight of the day. This has given him much confidence for tomorrow’s practice and qualifying. He hopes to secure a good grid position, which is paramount in this category as a bad start can leave the riders without any hope of a good race.

Maverick Viñales – 5th place – 1.35.919
These practice sessions didn’t go as planned. We should have worked more and tried more things but we couldn’t find the right setup. Tomorrow we have a lot of work to do and we hope we can improve. I’m sure we’ll find a solution for the setup and I’ll be able to give my maximum. Tito and Kallio are close but we have to work hard to enable ourselves to battle for victory on Sunday.

Luis Salom – 8th place – 1.36.038
The morning’s session went really well. In the afternoon I knew we could improve but didn’t have a clear picture as to the “how”. I felt comfortable on the bike, but this is a track where it’s difficult to shave tenths of your time. But we managed to improve the laptime in the afternoon and found a good rhythm at the end of the session. We need to try a few more things tomorrow because I believe, if we can improve in certain areas, we’ll be able to make further progress and that’ll be crucial for qualifying and the race on Sunday, which will hopefully go well for us.

Source: Pons Racing