Cautious start for Jorge Martin and Juanfran Guevara at Brno

Holiday memories are ever more distant for the Moto3 riders as they tackle the second Grand Prix in as many weekends at Brno.

Just five days after racing at Indianapolis on the other side of the Atlantic, the opening free practice sessions for the Czech Republic Grand Prix took place today in intense summer heat.

Whether it was the heat or travel weariness the Moto3 lap times today were never a threat to the lap record although the man to beat once again looks like being series leader Danny Kent.

MAPFRE Team Mahindra’s three riders encountered differing feelings in today’s two free practice sessions, with Jorge Martín the quickest of the trio in seventeenth place.

The Spaniard clocked his best lap during this morning’s session, ending the day 1.3 seconds off the fastest lap, after encountering some chatter issues during the afternoon. Juanfran Guevara was four tenths off his team-mate in 24th position after making some promising late progress with his set-up.

17th Jorge Martín 2.09.842 (27 laps):
“Everything went badly this morning and I struggled to get to grips with the track at first but in the end I sorted it out and set a decent lap time. I still didn’t feel totally comfortable on the bike and in the second session the bike was moving around a lot. We rode on used tyres and overall the pace wasn’t too bad but we have to improve tomorrow because when we put new tyres in we get a certain amount of chatter. We didn’t find the right combination for the tyres today but I am pretty happy with my feeling. We think we maybe went too stiff with the front spring and it’s not absorbing the bumps well so we’ll look to change that.”

24th Juanfran Guevara 2.10.183 (25 laps):
“The setting we had this morning made it hard to turn the bike so we made a change to the front halfway through the session and managed to improve the lap time on the same tyre. We continued to work in the same direction and found some more improvements this afternoon. At the end of the session we put a new tyre in to try and set a fast lap but after two really strong sectors the rear stepped out and I almost crashed. Even though we didn’t manage to improve the lap time I am happy because we took some good steps forward today.”